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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE    MONEY-SPINNER 

AND  OTHER  CHARACTER  NOTES 


THE 

MONEY-SPINNER 

AND 

OTHER  CHARACTER  NOTES 

BY 

HENRY    SETON     MERRIMAN 

AUTHOR  OF  "  YOUNG  MISTLEV,"  "THE  SOWERS,"  ETC..  ETC. 

AND 

S.  G.  TALLENTYRE 


NEW    YORK 

A.    MACKEL    &    COMPANY 

1901 


COPVUICHT,    igoi,    BV 

A.    MACKEL    &    CO. 


Prats  of  T.  J.  Linle  *  Co. 
New  York.  U.  ^.  A. 


PR 

SZfJ 

3^M7 


Contents 


PAGE 

The  Money-Spinner 7 

The  Nurse 25 

The  Scholar 37 

The  Mother 47 

My  Lord 67 

'Melia 83 

The  Laborer 99 

Intellecta 113 

The  Soldier-Servant         .        .        .        .129 
The  Practical  Woman      .        .        .        .145 

The  Squire 161 

The  Beauty 177 

The  Peasant 191 

The  Frenchman  .        .        ,        .        .  205 

The  Schoolgirl 217 

The  Dog 229 

The  Caretaker 243 


1  B1  S'l-i? 


Contents 

TAG* 

The  Parson         .        .        .        . 

.                 .     263 

The  Child 

•     277 

The  Bad  Penny   . 

•      295 

The  Spinster 

.  3^3 

The  New  Woman 

■  329 

The  Farmer 

.   34« 

The  Money-Spinner 


The  Money-Spinner 

"  Notre  humeur  met  le  prix  a  tout  ce  qui  vient  de  la 

fortune." 

He  lives,  of  course,  in  the  most  correct 
part  of  town.  His  sons  see  to  such  things 
for  him.  They  are  young  men  with  a 
very  just  sense  of  the  responsibility  of  his 
position,  and  take  care  that  his  money 
shall  be  spent  in  the  most  elegant  and 
fashionable  manner  possible.  Quite  re- 
gardless, therefore,  of  the  trouble  thereby 
entailed  upon  them — and  the  expense 
thereby  entailed  upon  him — they  have 
taken  care  that  his  house  shall  be  a  de- 
licious conglomerate  of  soft  carpets,  rare 
flowers,  the  latest  thing  in  decorations 
and  furniture,  the  best  French  cooks, 
and  the  most  irreproachable  butler.  The 
Money-spinner  would  indeed  be  an  un- 
grateful fiend  if,  after  expending  so  much 

9 


The  Moncy-Spinncr 

trouble  upon  it,  the  sons  could  not  use 
the  paternal  mansion  as  headquarters  for 
their  friends,  and  if  he  made  any  objec- 
tion to  his  married  daughter  giving  dances 
in  his  drawing-room,  and  erecting  the 
sweetest  little  stage  in  the  library  for  pri- 
vate theatricals. 

But  there  are  people  who  can  make 
money  and  cannot  appreciate  it.  Just  as 
there  are  other  people  who  can  appreci- 
ate money  but  cannot  make  it.  Of  the 
first,  the  Money-spinner  might  almost  be 
taken  as  an  example.  Of  the  second,  his 
children  arc  undoubtedly  admirable  in- 
stances. They  are  able  to  say,  with  a 
very  laudable  pride,  that  they  keep  the 
house  "  warm  "  and  give  the  servants 
"  something  to  do."  They  are  wont  to 
add  that  there  is  nothing  like  a  large 
house  party  for  keeping  up  poor  old 
papa's  spirits.  The  married  daughter, 
with  a  taste  for  society,  lays  a  very  great 
stress  upon  this  point.  As  every  one  says 
she  is  a  devoted  daughter,  she  certainly 
ought  to  know  what  is  good  for  poor  old 
papa's  spirits. 

le 


The  Money-Spinner 

And  yet,  but  for  her  word,  one  would 
scarcely  think  the  house-party  has  an  en- 
livening effect  upon  him.  When  he  creeps 
downstairs  forlornly  he  is  apt  to  encoun- 
ter elegant  young  ladies  in  travelling  cos- 
tumes ascending  his  staircase,  followed 
by  immense  trunks.  Beyond  the  fact 
that  they  are  going  to  be  his  visitors,  a 
fact  which,  under  the  circumstances,  any 
fool  could  guess,  he  knows  neither  who 
has  invited  them,  nor  how  long  they  pro- 
pose to  stay,  nor  even  what  are  their 
names.  That  they  are  equally  ignorant 
with  regard  to  him  is  revealed  to  him  by 
overhearing  one  of  them  ask  another, 
"Who  ever  is  that  old  thing?"  Edith 
(the  married  daughter)  assures  him  that 
he  is  in  very  good  society — better,  she 
insinuates  very  sweetly  and  gracefully, 
than  perhaps  he  has  been  used  to.  She 
cannot  forget,  being  a  person  of  very  re- 
fined and  delicate  tastes,  his  Clapham 
origin.  And,  knowing  always  what  is 
best  for  poor  dear  papa,  will  not  allow 
him  to  forget  it  either. 

Perhaps  the  society  is  good.      Perhaps 

II 


The  Money-Spinner 

the  Money-spinner  thinks,  as  he  looks 
down  a  tableful  of  guests  who  are  very 
much  appreciating  his  delicate  wines  and 
the  French  cooking — that  it  is  too  good 
for  him.  He  sits  at  the  head  of  the  table 
in  a  rarely  broken  silence.  The  young 
men  talk  across  him,  after  dinner,  on  sub- 
jects of  which  he  knows  nothing.  Occa- 
sionally one  or  other  of  them  thinks  that 
the  old  boy  seems  rather  out  of  things, 
and  attempts  to  draw  him  into  the  con- 
versation. But  they  soon  find  out  he  has 
never  been  at  Oxford  and  is  consequently 
impossible.  They  are  so  kind  as  to  say 
that  he  is  good  enough  perhaps  for  dollar- 
grinding,  but  a  fellow,  by  Jove,  of  abso- 
lutely no  cultchah  whatever.  So  he  is 
left  to  finger  his  wine-glass  with  bent 
hands  that  shake  a  little,  and  says  noth- 
ing. He  is  left  sitting  there  in  the  same 
attitude  when  the  others  have  gone  to 
the  library  to  rehearse  the  play  Edith  is 
so  very  kindly  getting  up  for  a  charity. 
He  would  sit  there  perhaps  for  another 
hour,  but  the  butler,  quite  firm  and  po- 
lite, points  out  to  him  that  if  the  table  is 

12 


The  Money-Spinner 

not  cleared  the  servants'  supper  will  be 
delayed.  He  moves  hastily,  apologeti- 
cally, and  creeps  up  to  the  drawing-room. 
But  it  is  bare  of  furniture,  and  druggeted 
for  Edith's  skirt-dancing  party  to-mor- 
row. He  had  forgotten  the  party.  He 
is  beginning  to  forget  many  things.  In 
the  library  a  young  lady — the  Girl  of  the 
Stairs — is  in  a  stage  faint  in  his  particu- 
lar arm-chair.  She  wakes  up  when  he 
comes  in,  and  says,  with  an  immensely 
becoming  blush,  directed  at  the  eldest 
son,  that  if  any  one  else  is  going  to  look 
on  she  really  doesn't  think  she  can  go  on 
with  this  utterly  ridiculous  scene  and 
make  such  an  awful  idiot  of  herself. 
"  You  need  not  mind  me,"  the  Money- 
spinner  murmurs  in  his  old  voice,  "  for  I 
shall  not  be  looking  at  you."  Perhaps  it 
occurs  to  him  afterwards  that  this  is  not 
what  he  was  meant  to  say,  that  there  is 
a  plainness  and  directness  in  his  form  of 
speech  which  savors  odiously  of  Clapham. 
One  of  the  sons,  who  is  always  so  thought- 
ful, accommodates  poor  old  papa  with  the 
music-stool,   the  only  seat  of  which  the 

13 


The  Money-Spinner 

actors  have  not  taken  possession.  He 
sits  there  looking  so  ridiculously  depressed 
and  old  that  Edith  whispers  at  last  that 
he  is  a  perfect  damper  on  them  all,  and  if 
he  is  going  to  look  like  that  he  had  bet- 
ter go  to  bed.  Perhaps  he  despairs  of 
looking  anything  except  like  that.  So 
he  goes,  slowly,  to  bed. 

The  theatricals — for  the  charity — have 
a  way  of  always  taking  that  arm-chair,  he 
finds.  He  also  discovers  that  the  whole 
plot  of  the  piece  rests  upon  one  of  the 
Oxford  men  finding,  in  the  fourth  act, 
some  one's  long  lost  Will  inside  the  eve- 
ning newspaper.  Further,  the  Oxford 
man  considers  that  this  incident  gives 
him  a  right  to  retain  that  newspaper  and 
read  it  intermittently  through  the  first 
three  acts.  The  stage  is  very  comfort- 
ably situated  near  the  fire.  Some  woman, 
with  an  odd  compassion,  very  much  out 
of  place,  for  poor  old  papa  looking  so  ut- 
terly ridiculous  on  his  music-stool,  asks  if 
he  cannot  sit  among  the  performers  dur- 
ing rehearsals  and  warm  himself  there  by 
the  fire  ?     But  she  is  assured  that  it  would 


The  Money-Spinner 

be  horribly  unprofessional,  and  isn't  to  be 
thought  of. 

Every  one  in  town  says  the  skirt-danc- 
ing parties  are  perfectly  charming  and 
brilliantly  successful.  If  the  Money-spin- 
ner is  not  grateful  for  all  the  trouble 
Edith  takes  in  getting  them  up,  he  cer- 
tainly ought  to  be.  It  is  not  as  if  they 
were  for  her  honor  and  glory.  Not  at 
all.  They  are  given  in  his  name,  and  it 
is  therefore  plainly  his  duty  to  make  him- 
self agreeable.  Perhaps  he  tries.  Per- 
haps it  is  Clapham  still  cleaving  to  him 
which  makes  him  so  dull,  and  apathetic, 
and  heavy.  Perhaps  it  is  only  because 
he  is  old  and  tired.  Who  knows  ?  If  he 
rouses  himself  to  think  at  all,  it  is  per- 
haps to  reflect  that  his  mother — dead, 
God  knows  how  many  years  ago — would 
scarcely  have  thought,  in  her  bourgeoise 
way,  that  some  of  the  fine  ladies  he  is 
entertaining  were  altogether  respectable. 
Perhaps  he  would  think — if  he  were  al- 
lowed to  think  independently — that  the 
entertainment  itself  is — well,  a  trifle  vul- 
gar.    But  then,  as  Edith  told  him   this 

15 


The  Money-Spinner 

morning,  he  is  so  awfully  Clapham.  It 
must  be  because  his  mind  is  so  permeated 
with  the  commonness  of  his  native  soil 
that  he  sees  vulgarity  even  in  a  chaste 
and  beautiful  entertainment,  which  is  the 
very  height  of  fashion. 

His  wife,  for  he  has  a  wife,  is  not  a 
creature  of  his  common  and  earthy  mould. 
She  is  far  younger,  with  beauty  still,  an 
aristocratic  origin,  a  delicate  fragility,  and 
a  heart  complaint  which  she  dresses  to 
perfection.  She  only  lives  in  England  a 
few  months  out  of  every  year.  The  doc- 
tors say  she  is  a  perfect  exotic.  A  sweet 
term,  which  suits  her  to  perfection.  She 
has  a  villa  in  Algiers,  and  bears  up  won- 
derfully (her  physician  says  she  has  a  great 
soul  although  she  is  so  frail)  at  the  part- 
ing from  her  husband  which  takes  place 
every  year.  He  is  more  emotional.  The 
bourgeois  always  are.  That  is  one  of  the 
ways  by  which  one  can  tell  the  breed. 
He  has  not  forgotten  the  old  love  he  had 
for  her  years  ago.  He  does  not  expect — 
he  never  expected — that  she  should  re- 
turn it.     Numbers  of  those  obliging  peo- 

i6 


The  Money-Spinner 

pie  who  go  about  the  world  telling  the 
truth  assure  him  that  he  was  married  for 
his  money.  He  accepts  the  fact  meekly. 
For  what  else  should  she,  the  second 
cousin,  only  a  few  times  removed,  of  an 
Earl,  have  married  a  creature  with  a 
plebeian  name,  an  obscure  origin,  and 
the  clumsy  hands  and  feet  of  the  People  ? 
The  Exotic  tells  her  dearest  friends — and 
being  such  an  eminently  charming  per- 
son, her  dearest  friends  are  quite  unlim- 
ited in  number — that  she  sacrificed  her- 
self in  marriage  to  retrieve  her  papa's 
fortune.  Her  dearest  friends  are  quite 
enraptured  at  so  rare  and  sweet  a  self- 
devotion,  and  say  to  each  other  on  their 
way  home  that  the  Exotic  is  perfectly 
aware  of  the  value  of  money,  and  had  de- 
termined to  marry  the  Money-spinner 
when  she  was  a  child  in  the  school-room. 
Such  spiteful  persons  (ladies,  for  the  most 
part,  who  are  probably  jealous  of  the  Ex- 
otic's fine  drawing-room  and  her  well- 
preserved  beauty)  add  that  it  would  have 
been  better  for  the  Money-spinner  if  he 
had  married  upon  five  hundred  a  year 
2  17 


The  Money-Spinner 

and  lived  ever  after  in  a  suburban  villa 
(once  the  height  of  his  ambition).  Un- 
der such  circumstances,  the  ladies  add, 
the  Exotic  would  not  have  had  time  for 
her  heart  complaint,  and  would  have 
stayed  at  home  like  other  people  and 
looked  after  her  husband  and  children. 
Or  would  have  stayed  at  home  and  died. 
They  are  unable  to  determine  which  al- 
ternative would  have  contributed  more  to 
the  Money-spinner's  happiness. 

He  himself  has  an  absolute  devotion  to 
his  wife — and  a  corresponding  belief  in 
that  heart  complaint.  He  is  too  dull, 
perhaps,  to  form  conceptions  of  what 
might  have  been.  Or  is  too  shrewd,  de- 
spite his  apathy,  to  think  that  his  wife's 
affection  for  him  would  have  grown  bet- 
ter in  a  crude  villa,  perpetually  odorifer- 
ous of  cooking,  than  in  her  dainty  flower- 
scented  rooms  in  Prince's  Gate.  He  is 
one  of  those  slow-going  people  whose 
feelings  do  not  change.  Even  now,  when 
her  name  is  mentioned,  his  dim  eyes 
brighten,  and  he  rouses  from  the  apathy 
into  which  he  is  falling  deeper  and  deeper 

i8 


The  Money-Spinner 

r 

every  day.  She  is  the  only  subject  upon 
which  he  can  talk  with  animation.  The 
son  of  his  old  age  is  vacuous,  idle,  and 
dissolute.  There  is  but  one  interest  in 
the  world  left  clear  and  fresh  and  strone 
to  him — and  that  is  the  wife  who  neglects 
him. 

Every  day,  from  the  force  of  old  habit, 
he  drives  to  the  City  office  in  which  years 
before  he  accumulated  his  fortune.  The 
sons  say  it  is  perfectly  ridiculous.  Edith 
is  not  quite  sure  that  it  is  not — well,  a 
little  common.  But  sometimes,  when 
they  want  an  extra  check,  they  will  con- 
sent, so  beautiful  is  their  humility  and 
condescension,  to  drive  to  the  office  and 
ask  him  for  it  personally.  The  sons  won- 
der what  the  deuce  he  does  there  all  day. 
They  themselves  know  nothing  about 
making  money — only  spending  it.  And 
that  they  do  to  perfection.  Edith  says 
he  grubs  about  the  old  Stocks  and  Shares, 
and  she  verily  believes  is  quite  fond  of 
them.  Perhaps  he  is.  They  have  for 
him  the  attraction  of  old  association.  As 
he  sits  in  the  very  elderly  leather  chair, 

19 


The  Money-Spinner 

which  neither  persuasion  nor  sarcasm  can 
induce  him  to  exchange  for  a  better,  it  is 
possible  that  he  recalls  his  youth.  He 
recollects  the  old  poverty,  the  bitter 
struggle,  the  keen  ambition.  He  remem- 
bers the  fierce  incentive  he  had  to  work 
— the  success  coming  slowly,  slowly — 
and  then  bursting  upon  him  like  a  great 
dawn.  But  Edith  has  come  up — for  a 
little  money,  she  says.  Only  people's 
ideas  of  what  constitutes  a  little  money 
differ  very  considerably.  "  My  dear 
papa,"  she  exclaims,  with  a  tap  on  his 
shoulder,  "  you  have  been  dozing.  And 
if  you  only  knew  how  you  have  been 
snoring  I  verily  believe  you  would  never 
go  to  sleep  again." 

One  morning  the  valet  comes  to  Edith 
with  a  scared  face.  "  My  master,"  says 
the  man,  "  is  ill;  and  I  think  a  doctor 
should  be  sent  for  at  once." 

"  Parker  always  loses  his  head  in  ill- 
ness," says  Edith  when  the  man  has  gone. 

Poor  dear  papa!  I  shall  go  up  and  see 
him,  and  then  I  can  judge  for  myself. 
But  I  must  say  I  hope  to  goodness  he 

20 


The  Money-Spinner 

won't  want  the  doctor;  for  who  can  be 
spared  to  fetch  him  this  morning,  with 
the  dancing  coming  off  to-night  and  every- 
thing— /  don't  know." 

The  sons  do  not  know  either.  Nor  the 
guests.  No  one  knows.  And  so  every 
one  continues  breakfast  with  an  assump- 
tion of  cheerfulness  which  is  so  very  ad- 
mirably done  that  it  might  almost  be 
taken  for  the  real  thing.  Edith  sees  papa, 
and  does  not  think  he  is  nearly  so  bad  as 
Parker  makes  him  out.  He  seems  apa- 
thetic and  heavy,  and  says  very  little. 
But  that  is  all.  (Edith  has  once  been 
engaged  to  a  physician,  so  she  thinks  she 
ought  to  know  something  of  medicine.) 
Still,  perhaps  they  will  go  round  by  the 
doctor's,  and  ask  him  to  call,  during  their 
morning  drive.  It  is  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands of  miles  out  of  their  way,  but  it 
will  never  do  to  let  poor  old  papa  feel 
himself  neglected.  So  after  a  little  shop- 
ping at  Shoolbred's,  ices  at  Buzzard's, 
and  a  detour  by  way  of  Marshall  &  Snel- 
grove's,  they  call  on  the  doctor.  He  has 
just  gone  out,  so  there  is  a  short  unavoid- 

24 


The  Money-Spinner 

able  delay  in  his  coming.  But  that  does 
not  matter,  because  the  Money-spinner 
has  died  some  hours  before.  Parker  has 
been  with  him,  and  has  bent  over  him 
with  a  polite  affection  not  born  entirely, 
perhaps,  of  handsome  wages  and  unlim- 
ited perquisites.  His  master  says  very 
little.  He  has  been  in  the  habit  of  say- 
ing very  little  all  his  life.  He  asks  that  a 
photograph  of  his  wife — a  dressy  photo- 
graph in  a  theatrical  pose — may  be  turned 
so  that  he  can  see  it  from  where  he  lies. 
Once  or  twice  he  murmurs  her  name. 
His  intellect  is  quite  clear.  He  does  not 
ask  to  see  her,  but  appears  to  recollect 
perfectly  that  she  is  far  away  from  him, 
as  she  has  been  for  more  than  half  their 
married  life.  Once  he  asks  for  his  young- 
est son,  speaking  of  him  by  some  baby 
name  which  has  long  since  dropped  into 
disuse.  Parker  explains  to  his  master 
that  Mr.  Harold  does  not  know  his  father 
is  so  ill,  and  has  gone  out  riding.  After 
that  the  Money-spirtner  never  speaks 
again.  The  monotonous  ticking  of  the 
clock  is  the  only  sound  that  breaks  the 

22 


The  Money-Spinner 

silence.  The  old  man's  withered  hands 
move  restlessly  on  the  bedclothes.  He 
turns  his  head  once,  slowly,  on  his  pillow, 
and  so  dies — the  most  desolate  of  God's 
creatures. 

The  evening  party  has  to  be  put  off, 
and  Edith  goes  into  very  stylish  mourn- 
ing. The  vacuous  son  consoles  himself 
by  marrying  a  barmaid.  It  is  whispered 
that  the  Exotic  will  not  long  remain  a 
widow,  and  Parker  has  found  a  situation 
in  a  titled  familv. 


23 


The  Nurse 


The  Nurse 


"  II  y  a  de  mechantes  qualites  qui  font  de  grands 
talents. " 

Peg  has  an  excellent  situation.  Her 
mistress  has  often  said  so  herself.  And 
she  ought  to  know.  "  Eighteen  pounds 
a  year  and  All  Found  is  a  great  deal  more, 
George,  than  most  people  give  their 
nurses.  And  there  isn't  any  one  else 
who  would  put  up  with  what  I  do  from 
Margaret." 

There  is  no  doubt  at  all  that  Peg  has  a 
passionate  temper,  and,  at  times,  it  is  to 
be  feared,  a  coarse  tongue.  She  is  short, 
sturdy,  and  eminently  plebeian,  with  lit- 
tle, quick,  black,  flashing  eyes.  She  is 
ignorant.  The  culture  and  polish  of  the 
Board  School  are  not  upon  her.  But 
when  Nellie,  her  eldest  charge,  dares  to 
doubt  the  statements  Peg  has  made  to 

27 


The  Nurse 

Jack,  a  propos  of  the  story  of  Alfred  and 
the  cakes,  Peg  chases  Nellie  round  the 
table  and  boxes  her  ears.  It  will  thus  be 
seen  that  Peg  is  no  fool. 

Jacky  is  her  especial  care.  Jacky  is  a 
gay  soul  of  four.  To  say  that  Peg  is 
proud  of  him  would  be  but  a  miserable 
half-truth.  She  flings,  as  it  were,  Jacky's 
charms  of  mind  and  person  in  the  face  of 
the  Abigails  of  less  favored  infants.  She 
steadily  exhibits  every  day,  during  a  con- 
stitutional walk,  Jack's  sturdy  limbs  and 
premature  conversation  to  nurses  whose 
charges  have  vastly  inferior  limbs  and  no 
conversation  at  all.  It  is  unnecessary  to 
add  that  Peg  is  exceedingly  unpopular. 

Jack  is  being  ruinously  spoilt.  Mamma 
says  so.  Mamma,  however,  is  not  a  per- 
son of  strong  character,  and  Peg  is  of  very 
strong  character.  So  Mamma  cannot  pos- 
sibly help  the  spoiling.  Peg  indeed  makes 
Jack  obey  her,  but  does  not  particularly 
impress  on  him  to  obey  any  one  else.  She 
has  been  known,  on  rare  occasions,  to  ad- 
minister correction  to  him  with  a  hand 
which  is  not  of  the  lightest.     But  when 


The  Nurse 

Mamma''punishes  him  Peg  appears  in  the 
drawing-room  trembling  and  white  with 
rage  to  announce  that  she  will  not  stay  to 
see  the  child  ill-used.  "  This  day  month, 
if  you  please,"  and  a  torrent  of  abuse. 

Of  course  it  is  not  this  day  month. 
Mamma  says,  "  I  told  you  she  would 
come  round,  George.  Margaret  is  per- 
fectly wide-awake,  I  assure  you,  and 
knows  a  good  place  when  she  has  it." 

So  Peg  keeps  the  good  place — and  Jack. 

One  summer  she  takes  him  down  to  a 
country  manor  to  stay  with  his  cousins. 
Before  the  end  of  the  first  week  she  has 
quarrelled  with  all  the  manor  servants — 
especially  the  nurses.  When  Jacky,  with 
a  gay  smile  and  guileless  mien,  puts  out 
the  eyes  of  cousin  Mabel's  doll,  and  Mabel 
weeps  thereat.  Peg  is  seen  smacking  that 
infant  in  a  corner.  This  is  too  much  for 
the  manor.  And  it  is  certain  if  Jacky 
had  not  most  inconveniently  fallen  ill  the 
manor  spare  bedroom  would  have  been 
wanted  for  other  occupants,  and  Peg  and 

29 


The  Nurse 

Jacky  would  have  returned  home  three 
weeks  too  soon. 

There  is  not  much  the  matter  with 
Jacky.  Only  a  croupy  cold.  And  Peg 
knows  all  about  these  croupy  colds.  She 
tries  upon  it  many  terrible  and  ignorant 
remedies.  Will  not  hear  of  the  doctor 
being  sent  for,  and  one  night  suddenly 
sends  for  him  herself.  And  the  doctor 
sends  for  Jacky's  parents.  Peg  is  at  the 
doorway  to  meet  Mamma — hysterically 
reproachful  from  the  cab  window.  Peg 
is  quite  white,  with  an  odd  glitter  in  her 
little  eyes,  and  does  not  lose  her  temper. 
Before  Mamma  has  been  revived  by  sherry 
in  the  dining-room  Peg  is  back  again  with 
the  boy.  She  has  scarcely  left  him  for 
a  week.  He  has  already  lost  his  pretty 
plumpness  and  roundness — a  mere  shadow 
of  a  child  even  now,  with  nothing  left  of 
his  old  self  except  a  capacity  for  laughing 
— what  a  weak  laugh ! — gmd  an  odd  sense 
of  humor  in  grim  satire  to  his  wasted 
body  and  the  grave  faces  round  him. 
Only  Peg  laughs  back  at  him;  Mamma 

30 


The  Nurse 

wonders  how  she  can  have  the  heart. 
But  then,  of  course,  one  cannot  expect 
a  servant  to  feel  what  one  does  oneself. 
It  may  be  because  Peg  is,  after  all,  merely 
hired  (eighteen  pounds  a  year  and  All 
Found),  and  is  no  sort  of  relation  to  Jack, 
that  she  can  hold  him  in  her  arms,  talk  to 
him,  sing  to  him  by  the  hour  together; 
that  she  can  do  with  little  rest  and  hur- 
ried meals ;  that  she  is  always  alert,  sturdy, 
and  competent. 

Mamma  thinks  it  is  a  blessed  thing  that 
the  lower  classes  are  not  sensitive  like  we 
are.     It  is  a  very  blessed  thing — for  Jack. 

Papa  is  worn  out  with  grief  and  anxiety 
before  the  color  has  left  Peg's  homely 
face. 

Mamma  is  incompetent  and  hysterical 
from  the  first,  and  is  soon  forbidden  the 
sick-room  altogether. 

It  is  melancholy  to  record  that  when 
this  mandate  is  issued  a  gleam  of  satis- 
faction— not  to  say  triumph — steals  over 
Peg's  resolute  countenance. 

He's  getting  on  nicely,  doctor,  now, 
isn't   he?"    she    inquires  of  the    bigwig 

31 


The  Nurse 

from  Harley  Street  a  day  or  two  later. 
"  He  "  is  Jack,  of  course.  The  large  and 
pompous  physician  looks  down  at  her 
through  his  gold-rimmed  eye-glasses,  and 
gives  her  to  understand,  not  ungently — 
for  though  she  is  only  the  nurse,  he  thinks 
she  has  some  real  affection  for  the  child 
— that  Jack  is  dying. 

"  Dying!"  Peg  flashes  out  full  of  de- 
fiance. "  Then  what's  the  use  of  your 
chattering  and  worriting  and  upsetting 
the  place  like  this,  if  that's  all  you  can 
do  for  him?  Dying!  We'll  see  about 
that." 

From  that  moment  she  defies  them  all. 
The  consulting  physicians,  the  ordinary 
practitioner,  the  night-nurse  from  Guy's, 
Death  itself,  perhaps.  She  never  leaves 
the  child.  The  shadow  of  the  old  Jacky 
lies  all  day  long  on  a  pillow  in  her  lap ; 
sometimes  all  night  too.  When  it  is  past 
saying  anything  else  it  says  her  name.  It 
has  its  head  so  turned  that  it  can  see  her 
face.  When  she  smiles  down  at  it,  the 
forlornest  ghost  of  a  smile  answers  her 
back.     She  has  an  influence  over  it  that 

32 


The  Nurse 

would  be  magical  if  it  were  not  most  nat- 
ural that  devotion  should  be  repaid  by 
devotion,  even  from  the  heart  of  a  child. 

The  consulting  physician  says  one  day 
that  if  there  is  a  hope  for  the  boy  that 
hope  lies  in  Peg's  nursing.  It  is  the 
first  time  he  has  admitted  that  there  can 
be  a  hope  at  all.  Peg's  face  shines  with 
an  odd  light  which,  if  she  were  not  wholly 
plain  and  plebeian,  would  make  her  beau- 
tiful. 

One  day,  when  the  shadow  is  lying  in 
her  lap  as  usual,  the  night-nurse  puts  a 
telegram  into  her  hand.  When  she  has 
read  it  she  lays  Jacky  on  the  bed  and  goes 
away.  For  the  first  time  she  does  not 
heed  his  feeble  cry  of  her  name. 

She  finds  the  father  and  mother,  and, 
with  the  pink  paper  shaking  in  her  hand, 
says  that  her  brother  is  dying;  that  she 
must  go  away.  Blood  is  thicker  than 
water  after  all.  She  has  but  a  few  pas- 
sions, but  those  few  are  strong;  and  the 
dying  brother  is  one  of  them. 

The  father,  broken  dov/n  by  the  wretch- 
edness of  the  past  weeks,  implores  her  to 
3  33 


The  Nurse 

stay  and  save  Jacky.  But  she  is  un- 
moved. Her  brother  is  dying,  and  she 
must  go. 

The  mother,  abjectly  miserable,  entreats 
and  prays,  and  offers  her  money,  and  Peg 
turns  upon  her  with  a  flash  of  scorn  far 
too  grand  for  her  stout  and  homely  per- 
son. 

And  when  she  goes  back  to  Jacky  a 
wan  ghost  of  a  smile  breaks  through  the 
tears  on  his  face,  and  he  lifts  a  weazened 
hand  to  stroke  her  cheek,  and  says  that  it 
Avas  bad  to  go  away,  and  she  is  not  to  go 
away  any  more. 

And  she  does  not. 

Jacky  gets  better.  It  is  as  if  Peg  has 
fought  with  Death — as  she  would  fight 
for  Jacky  with  anything  in  this  world 
or  in  any  other  world — and  conquered. 
Jacky 's  case  appears  in  the  "  Lancet," 
and  the  medical  bigwigs  shake  their  heads 
over  it  and  are  fairly  puzzled.     They  have 

34 


The  Nurse 

not  the  cue  to  the  whole  matter — which 
is  Peg. 

When  Jacky  is  past  a  woman's  care 
Peg  goes  away.  Papa  and  mamma  don't 
spare  expense,  and  give  her  a  five-pound 
note  as  a  parting  present. 

But  she  has  another  reward,  wholly  un- 
substantial and  satisfactory.  In  an  under- 
graduate's rooms  at  Christ  Church — an 
idle  dog  of  an  undergraduate,  by  the  way 
— amid  a  galaxy  of  dramatic  beauty,  and 
in  a  terrible  plush  frame,  presented  by 
herself,  there  is  a  photo — of  Peg. 

And  it  is  believed  that  the  undergradu- 
ate, who  is  not  in  any  other  way  remark- 
able for  domestic  virtue,  actually  writes 
to  her. 


35 


The  Scholar 


The  Scholar 

"  Qui  vit  sans  folic  n'est  pas  si  sage  qu'il  croit." 

He  is  fifty-five  years  old.  He  is  eru- 
dite, classic,  and  scholarly.  He  knows 
everything.  What  can  be  duller  than  a 
man  who  knows  everything  ?  He  is  sci- 
entific and  botanical.  He  wears  gray 
thread  gloves — a  size  too  large — goloshes, 
and  a  comforter.  And  yet,  when  his 
cousin  presents  him  with  a  living — a  re- 
mote living  in  the  wilds  of  a  northern 
county — he  purposes  to  be  married. 

This  Fossil,  with  traces  of  an  ice  age 
clearly  left  on  his  formal  manners  and 
punctilious  and  guarded  speech,  engages 
himself  to  Leonora. 

Leonora  is  romantic,  as  her  name  de- 
clares. But  Leonora's  guardian  is  emi- 
nently practical.  Thinks  the  living  will 
do.     And  so  Leonora  is  betrothed  to  it. 

39 


The  Scholar 

Leonora  is  sweet  and  twenty.  With 
brown  curls  tied  at  the  back  of  her  head 
with  a  ribbon.  With  an  arch  smile.  With 
a  charming  gift  of  singing — to  the  harp. 
She  is  not  erudite.  It  is  not  the  fashion 
for  young  ladies  to  be  erudite  in  her  time. 
When  her  elderly  lover  shows  her  speci- 
mens through  a  microscope — which  is  his 
ridiculous  old  way  of  expressing  admira- 
tion for  her — she  is  never  able  to  decide 
whether  she  is  looking  at  a  flower  or  a 
beetle.  She  is  wholly  volatile  and  lovely 
and  inattentive.  AH  his  love-making  is 
full  of  instruction.  It  is  an  absurd,  pe- 
dantic way  of  showing  one's  affection. 
But  it  is  almost  the  only  way  he  has. 
And  there  are  worse,  perhaps. 

They  go  for  their  honeymoon  to  the 
Riviera.  And  the  Riviera  of  forty  years 
ago  had  much  more  of  heaven  and  less  of 
earth  about  it  than  the  Riviera  of  the 
present  day. 

Beneath  the  deep  eternal  blue  and  the 
everlasting  sunshine  of  its  skies  the  Fos- 
sil's punctilious  formality  melts  a  little. 
He  still  goes  about  in  a  comforter  and 

40 


The  Scholar 

searches  for  specimens  through  near- 
sighted spectacles.  But  under  the  balmy 
warmth  of  an  Italian  sun — and  of  Leo- 
nora— his  chilliness  of  manner  experi- 
ences a  slight  thaw.  It  is  thought  that 
for  those  few  brief  weeks  he  is,  in  some 
very  slight  degree  of  course,  as  another 
man  might  be.  It  is  certain  that  his  bo- 
tanical friends  are  considerably  disap- 
pointed in  the  collection  of  Italian  flora 
he  has  to  show  them  on  his  return  home. 
Perhaps  the  flos  he  has  studied  most  is 
the  flower- faced  Leonora  at  his  side — 
Leonora  with  her  poke-bonnet  hung  upon 
her  arm,  with  her  curls  shaken  back,  and 
her  wicked,  laughing,  roguish  face  turned 
up  to  his — looking  for  all  the  world  like 
one  of  those  ridiculous  pictures  in  an  old- 
fashioned  Book  of  Beauty. 

Leonora  hates  science — and  stops  the 
scientist's  prosy  mouth  with  a  kiss.  Leo- 
nora can't  bear  botany,  and  likes  the 
flowers  much  better  without  those  inter- 
minable Latin  names  tacked  on  to  them. 

Is  she  in  love  with  her  Fossil  ?  Who 
shall  say  ?     It  is  preposterous  and  unnat- 

41 


The  Scholar 

ural  that  she  should  be.  But  the  prepos- 
terous and  unnatural  both  happen  occa- 
sionally. 

Is  her  Fossil  in  love  with  her  ?  A  hid- 
eous old  fright  in  goloshes,  a  tedious, 
moth-eaten  old  book-worm  has  no  right 
to  be  in  love  with  any  one. 

Then  they  go  home  to  the  country' 
vicarage.  The  country  vicarage  is  the  in- 
carnation of  dulness,  dampness,  and  ugli- 
ness. And  Leonora  sings  about  the  house 
and  scandalizes  the  servants.  The  furni- 
ture is  immensely  solid  and  frightful.  And 
Leonora's  shawl  is  thrown  here,  and  her 
work — in  dreadful  disorder — there,  and 
roses  from  the  garden  everywhere. 

The  Fossil,  before  he  was  married,  had 
drawn  up  a  solemn  code  of  rules  for  the 
guidance  of  the  household.  A  bell  to 
tell  them  to  get  up;  a  bell  to  tell  them 
to  come  down;  a  bell  for  prayers;  a  bell 
to  begin  breakfast,  and  a  bell  to  finish  it. 
And  Leonora  stops  her  ears  when  she 
hears  these  warnings,  and  is  never  less 
than  ten  minutes  late  for  meals. 

The  Fossil  sits  in  his  study,  scientific 

42 


The  Scholar 

and  theological,  and  Leonora  breaks  in 
upon  this  sanctum,  without  tapping,  with 
her  face  glowing  and  laughing,  and  shuts 
up  the  abstruse  work  with  a  bang.  She 
drags  the  Fossil  into  the  garden  without 
his  goloshes.  When  she  wants  to  do 
something  incompatible  with  his  Calvin- 
istic  principles  she  lays  her  fresh  face 
against  his  parchment  cheek  and  says  it 
isn't  any  good  saying  "  No,"  because  she 
really  Must.     And  she  always  does. 

The  Fossil  had  a  great  scientific  work 
in  hand  when  he  was  married — an  elabo- 
rate treatise  upon  the  Paleozoic  Epoch — 
but  it  proceeds  lamentably  slowly.  He 
attempts  to  write  in  the  evening  after 
dinner,  and  Leonora  draws  out  the  harp 
from  its  corner  and  sings  to  it.  She  sings 
"Rose  Softly  Blooming"  and  "  'Twas 
One  of  Those  Dreams,"  and  the  great 
work  does  not  proceed  at  all. 

Then  Leonora  is  ill,  and  the  little 
daughter  is  dead  before  she  is  born.  But 
Leonora  is  soon  better — well  enough  to 
lie  on  the  sofa  and  be  sweet,  foolish,  and 
tiresome  once  more.     The  Fossil  sits  by 

43 


The  Scholar 

her  side  gravely.  Sometimes  he  brings 
her  flowers  without  their  botanical  names. 
He  proses  scientifically,  as  from  long 
habit;  but  he  looks  the  while  at  her 
transparent  color  and  her  shining  eyes, 
and  the  science  is  at  times  unscholarly 
and  even  incorrect.  And  Leonora  looks 
back  at  him  with  the  old  arch,  laughing 
glance,  and  with  something  more  behind 
it.  It  is  a  something  they  do  not  say — 
which  can  never  be  said.  Perhaps  the 
one  thinks  that  the  other  does  not  know 
it.  It  may  be  so.  To  the  last  Leonora 
is  very  much  better — "  Nearly  quite  well," 
in  answer  to  a  daily  question.  On  the 
last  evening  the  Fossil  is  proposing  a 
change  to  the  seaside  to  complete  her 
cure,  and  she  dies  with  a  smile  and  a  jest, 
infinitely  tender  and  selfless,  upon  her 
lips. 

The  neighborhood,  who  could  not  be 
expected  to  like  an  "  eccentric  old  thing  " 
like  the  Fossil,  decides  that  he  is  shock- 
ingly heartless.  He  appears  at  Leonora's 
funeral  actually  in  a  red  comforter.  There 
are  no  signs  of  emotion  upon  his  face. 

44 


The  Scholar 

The  lines  may  be  a  trifle  deeper  upon  it, 
perhaps ;  but  then  he  was  always  deeply 
lined,  so  that  does  not  count. 

He  completes  the  great  work ;  he  draws 
up  a  new  and  more  ridiculous  code  of 
rules  for  his  household  ;  and  then  he  mar- 
ries again.  His  wife  is  perfectly  virtuous 
and  meaningless.  She  obeys  the  bells  to 
a  second ;  she  never  interrupts  his  studies ; 
she  never  lets  the  children  disturb  him ; 
his  comforter  and  gloves  are  never  out  of 
their  places.  She  is  an  excellent  wife — 
a  great  deal  too  good  for  him. 

He  grows  duller  and  more  erudite  yearly. 
A  visitor  describes  him  as  a  Lump  of  Sci- 
ence. He  composes  immensely  learned 
and  dreary  sermons.  The  six  yokels  who 
usually  form  his  congregation  very  sensi- 
bly go  to  sleep.  The  chill  formality  of 
his  manner  repulses  the  parishioners  and 
frightens  his  children.  He  attempts  to 
teach  these  children  out  of  his  fusty  stores 
of  scientific  lore,  but  they  are  too  awe- 
struck to  comprehend  anything — suppos- 
ing that  they  had  the  ^ility,  which  they 
have  not. 

45 


The  Scholar 

Their  mother  dies;  they  grow  up  and 
go  out  into  the  world.  As  far  as  the 
Fossil  is  concerned,  they  are  virtually 
dead  also;  but  then,  as  far  as  he  is  con- 
cerned, they  might  almost  as  well  never 
have  been  alive. 

He  is  not  more  lonely  than  he  has  been 
for  twenty  years.  He  passes  all  day  in 
his  study  among  his  books.  That  the 
room  is  damp  and  dreary,  matters  little 
to  him.  The  books  are  behind  the  time. 
He  is  behind  the  time  himself.  Between 
him  and  the  musty  work  over  which  his 
old  head  bends,  comes  sometimes  a  vision 
of  the  days  that  once  were  and  will  be  no 
more.  The  Italian  sunshine  above,  the 
touch  of  a  hand,  the  sound  of  a  laughing 
voice,  a  girl's  face,  brilliant  and  tender, 
and  he  sees — Leonora. 


46 


The  Mother 


The  Mother 

"  L'etre  le  plus  aime  est  celui  par  qui  on  aura  le  plus 
souffert." 

Mrs.  Tasker  lets  lodgings.  She  lives 
in  the  most  remote  and  unknown  of  east 
coast  watering  places.  Her  modest  abode 
is  not  patronized  by  the  fashionable.  She 
does  not  even  pretend — there  is,  in  fact, 
no  pretence  about  Mrs.  Tasker — that  her 
sitting-room  has  a  sea  view.  Neither  does 
she  deceive  the  impecunious  hospital- 
nurse,  the  soft  spinster,  and  the  strug- 
gling lady  artist,  who  form  her  clientele, 
with  promises  of  good  cooking  or  any  de- 
scription of  attendance. 

Mrs.  Tasker,  in  fact,  lets  lodgings,  as  it 
were,  upon  sufferance.  She  receives  her 
guests  with  a  cast  of  countenance  per- 
fectly lugubrious.  She  has  paid  no  at- 
tention to  her  dress  so  as  to  create  an 

4  49 


The  Mother 

agreeable  impression  upon  them.  Her 
normal  costume  of  a  dingy  skirt,  a  forlorn 
top  of  a  different  color,  and  a  depressing 
apron  is  unchanged.  She  is  on  the  alert 
to  tell  them  at  the  moment  of  their  arrival 
all  the  drawbacks  they  will  find  to  herself, 
her  rooms,  her  kitchen-range,  and  the 
place  in  general.  "  Your  neighborhood 
is  lovely,  I  am  told,"  says  the  lady  artist 
with  the  sweetest  and  most  propitiating 
of  smiles. 

I've  never  seed  as  it  was,"  answers 
Mrs.  Tasker  gloomily.  She  hates  the 
lady  artist.  She  regards  all  lodgers,  in- 
deed, with  a  perfectly  consistent  animos- 
ity. Her  disdain  for  a  class  of  persons 
who  require  frequent  incidental  cups  of 
tea,  hot  dinners  every  day,  and  dessert 
on  Sundays  is  quite  without  bounds. 
Her  sentiments  towards  her  guests  are 
written  large  upon  a  perfectly  plain  and 
trustworthy  countenance.  When  she  sees 
them  sitting  with  their  feet  upon  her  cher- 
ished Berlin  wool-worked  arm-chair  she 
bangs  their  door  as  she  leaves  the  room 
with  a   display  of    feeling    which   nearly 

50 


The  Mother 

brings  the  house  about  their  ears.  When 
one  of  them  ventures  to  ask  if  her  land- 
lady has  such  a  thing  as  a  pair  of  nut- 
crackers, the  satiric  scorn  on  Mrs.  Tasker's 
countenance  for  a  woman  in  the  prime  of 
life  who  cannot  crack  nuts  with  her  teeth 
causes  the  guest  to  blush,  and  apologize 
for  making  so  unreasonable  a  demand. 

Mrs.  Tasker  has,  moreover,  a  habit  of 
thrusting  the  dinner  things  on  a  tray  on 
to  the  table  in  front  of  the  visitor  with  an 
expression  which  says  more  plainly  than 
words,  "  If  you  can't  arrange  them  for 
yourself  you  must  be  a  fool." 

She  never  panders  to  the  Sybarite  in- 
clinations of  her  lodgers  by  bringing  them 
hot  water  in  the  morning.  When  they 
order  for  dinner  a  little  kickshaw  like  a 
mutton-chop  she  says,  with  an  unmis- 
takable note  of  triumph  in  her  voice, 
"  Our  butcher's  run  out  of  all  but  pork." 

She  always  prophesies  a  continuance  of 
wet  weather. 

"  When  it  do  begin  to  rain  here,"  she 
says,  "  it  takes  precious  good  care  not  to 
stop. 

51 


The  Mother 

But  in  spite  of  a  disposition  so  wholly 
honest  and  discouraging,  Mrs.  Tasker's 
lodgers  have  a  habit  of  coming  back  to 
her.  Mrs.  Tasker  is  indefatigably  clean. 
She  scrubs  and  polishes  until  she  is  pur- 
ple in  the  face.  She  would  scorn  the  idea 
of  purloining  a  single  tartlet  belonging  to 
the  parlor.  She  has  that  vigorous  hon- 
esty which  is  often  found  in  company 
with  a  bad  temper  and  a  good  heart. 

In  the  back  kitchen  live  Mr.  Tasker 
and  little  Johnnie.  Mr.  Tasker  is  thick, 
agricultural,  well-meaning,  and  beery. 
Mr.  Tasker  is  not  of  much  account,  and 
Johnnie  is  the  apple  of  Mrs.  Tasker's  eye. 
It  is  for  Johnnie  she  lets  lodgings.  She 
and  her  husband  could  live  well  enough 
— by  cutting  Tasker  off  his  beer — upon 
the  wages  of  a  day-laborer.  But  Johnnie 
wants  warm  underclothing  and  a  doctor 
when  he  is  ill,  and  presently  a  first-rate 
schooling.  Johnnie  must  have  nourish- 
ing food — or  what  Mrs.  Tasker  takes  to 
be  nourishing  food.  For  his  sake,  there- 
fore, the  mother  lets  lodgings.  For  his 
sake  she  bears  with  persons  who  are  al- 

52 


The  Mother 

ways  wanting  meals  and  ringing  the  bell. 
For  his  sake  she  controls — in  a  measure, 
at  least — a  temper  as  rough  as  her  homely- 
face.  For  his  sake  she  gets  up  very  early 
in  the  morning,  and  creeps  up-stairs  to 
bed,  with  a  sigh  she  cannot  wholly  stifle, 
very  late  at  night.  For  his  sake  she  gives 
up  what  she  calls  her  independence,  and 
which,  after  Johnnie — a  very  long  way 
after,  indeed — she  likes  better  than  any- 
thing she  has.  For  Johnnie's  sake  she 
does  not  turn  the  lady  artist  summarily 
out  of  doors  when  that  enthusiast  ruins 
the  parlor  table-cloth  with  her  oil  paints. 
For  the  sake  of  a  little  snivelling  boy, 
with  a  perpetual  cold  in  his  head  and  no 
pocket-handkerchief,  she  stints  herself 
and  Mr.  Tasker  in  food  and  clothing  and 
comforts.  She  performs,  indeed,  for  him 
a  thousand  sacrifices,  of  which  no  one 
knows,  perhaps,  the  extent  or  the  diffi- 
culty. She  is,  a  hundred  times  a  day, 
comparatively  polite  where  her  natural 
disposition  inclines  her  to  be  superlatively 
rude.  She  holds  her  tongue — at  a  great 
cost.     She  is  silently  scornful  where  she 

53 


The  Mother 

wants  to  be  abusive.  And  she  always 
manages,  for  Johnnie's  sake,  to  say  on 
parting  with  her  lodgers  that  she  hopes 
they  will  return  to  her  next  year. 

In  Mrs.  Tasker's  love  towards  the  child 
there  is  none  of  that  weakness  and  soft- 
ness which  distinguish  some  maternities. 
Her  love,  in  fact,  rarely  rises  to  her  lips. 
It  is  hidden  away  in  a  heart  wholly  strong, 
honest,  and  faithful.  The  utmost  dem- 
onstration of  affection  which  she  permits 
herself  towards  her  boy  is  to  occasionally 
rub  his  damp  little  nose  vigorously  with 
the  corner  of  her  apron,  leaving  the 
nose  astonishingly  red  and  flat.  Mrs. 
Tasker  "  don't  hold  "  with  spoiling  chil- 
dren. 

"  It's  a  poor  way  of  caring  for  'em," 
she  says.  And  so  when  little  Johnnie  is 
naughty  she  whips  him  very  severely,  and 
when  he  is  good  she  cuffs  him  occasion- 
ally, just  to  remind  him  that  the  maternal 
love  and  wisdom  are  always  watching  over 
him. 

At  present,  and  in  default  of  better, 
Johnnie  goes  to  the  village  school.      Mrs. 

54 


The  Mother 

Tasker  neatly  describes  the  schoolmaster 
as  a  "  flat,"  But  would  there  be  any- 
master  good  enough  to  teach  Johnnie  ? 
Perhaps  not.  He  is  sent  off  to  school 
while  the  lodgers  are  taking  their  break- 
fasts. Mrs.  Tasker  ties  him  up  tightly  in 
a  very  hygienic  and  scratchy  comforter 
which  she  has  made  with  great  pains  in 
her  rare  spare  minutes.  He  is  further 
clad  in  a  thick  coat,  studded  with  naval 
buttons,  which  Mrs.  Tasker  bought  in 
place  of  a  jacket  for  herself. 

Mrs.  Tasker  accompanies  him  to  the 
gate.  She  watches  him  out  of  sight,  and 
shakes  her  fist  at  him  when  he  looks 
round,  by  way,  as  it  were,  of  keeping  him 
up  to  his  duties.  It  is  only  when  he  is 
quite  out  of  sight  that  something  like  a 
smile  and  tenderness  come  on  her  harsh 
face,  and  she  goes  slowly  back  to  the 
house. 

"  You  think  a  sight  on  Johnnie,  I  sup- 
pose," says  Mr,  Tasker  gloomily  one  day, 
in  a  thick  voice  suggestive  of  agricultural 
mud. 

"  A    sight  more  than   I   do  on  you," 

55 


The  Mother 

answers  Mrs.   Tasker   snappily,  washing 
dishes. 

Mrs.  Tasker  has  a  feeling  which  she 
does  not  explain,  or  try  to  explain,  about 
her  love  for  the  child.  It  appears  to  her 
to  be  something  sacred  and  secret ;  that 
one  does  not  want  to  talk  about;  that 
one  resents  being  reminded  of;  of  which 
the  roots  are  too  deep  down  in  one's  heart 
to  bear  being  dug  up  and  looked  at. 

She  is  not,  indeed,  always  actually 
thinking  of  him.  She  has  a  thousand 
things  to  occupy  her  attention — the  lod- 
gers' meals  and  the  parlor  tabie-cloth, 
and  Mr.  Tasker's  tendency  to  inebriate 
himself.  But  the  child  stands  by,  as  it 
were — always  very  close  to  her  heart. 

Everything  she  does  is  directly  or  indi- 
rectly for  Johnnie.  She  eyes  the  clothing 
of  other  little  boys  with  a  view  to  copy- 
ing it  for  Johnnie.  She  has  quite  violent 
dislikes  towards  children  of  Johnnie's  age 
who  are  fatter  and  healthier  than  he  is. 
There  are,  indeed,  many  such.  But  per- 
haps the  maternal  affection  is  only  the 

56 


The  Mother 

stronger  because  Johnnie  is  puny,  weakly, 
and  plain — maternal  affection  having  been 
so  constituted  by  nature — or  God. 

One  winter,  a  winter  when  Mrs.  Tasker's 
rooms  are  occupied  by  a  soft-spoken  Spin- 
ster who  has  generously  sacrificed  her 
youth  to  a  slum,  Johnnie  is  very  puny 
and  weakly  indeed.  The  Spinster,  who 
takes  an  uncommon  interest  in  Johnnie, 
recommends  cod-liver  oil.  Mr.  Tasker, 
the  mother  having  already  denied  herself 
everything  except  the  bare  necessaries  of 
life,  is  cut  off  his  beer-money  to  provide 
it.  And  the  Spinster  thinks  this  is  a  very 
cold  place  for  your  dear  little  boy,  and  I 
am  just  starting  a  school  at  Torquay,  and 
won't  vou  trust  him  to  me  ?  And  the 
Spinster  kisses  Johnnie  with  great  self- 
sacrifice  on  the  tip  of  his  red  and  humid 
little  nose.  Mrs.  Tasker,  into  whose  face 
a  deep  color  has  come,  says  in  an  unusual 
voice,  "  I'll  think  on  it,  mum."  That 
evening,  when  Johnnie  has  gone  to  bed, 
Mr.  Tasker  spells  out  the  advertisement 
of  the  school  from  a  paper  the  Spinster 
has  lent  him. 

57 


The  Mother 

Mrs.  Tasker  sits  with  a  hand  on  each 
knee,  looking  very  deeply  and  fixedly 
into  the  fire. 

*'  'Ome  comfits  ?  "  she  says  doubtfully. 
"  And  what  do  she  mean  by  'ome  com- 
fits ?  Will  they  see  as  'is  shirt  is  aired 
and  'e  don't  sit  in  wet  boots  ?  " 

"  Un-lim-i-ted  di-et,"  continues  the  fa- 
ther with  difficulty, 

"  If  that  means  letting  'im  stuff  'isself, 
it'll  kill  that  child,"  says  Mrs.  Tasker, 
pessimistically. 

"  What  are  you  a-cryin*  for  ?  "  inquires 
her  husband.  Mrs.  Tasker  replies  with 
considerable  snappishness  that  she  is  not 
crying,  and  men  is  all  fools,  drat  them, 
with  other  remarks  so  uncomplimentary 
to  the  sex  that  Mr.  Tasker  prudently  lies 
low  behind  the  newspaper  until  the  storm 
is  over. 

The  Spinster's  blandishments  and  her 
advertisement  prevail.  Johnnie  goes  back 
with  her  to  Torquay.  She  is  paid  her  fee 
in  advance,  from  moaey  slowly  and  hardly 
saved  for  the  purpose,  and  mysteriously 
hidden  away  i*n   Mrs.  Tasker's  bedroom. 

58 


The  Mother 

The  mother  is  very  courageous  before  this 
parting,  and,  it  must  be  confessed,  to- 
wards Mr.  Tasker  particularly  uncertain 
in  temper.  She  initiates  the  Spinster  into 
the  mysteries  of  Johnnie's  underclothing. 
She  buys  him  six  pocket-handkerchiefs, 
and  instructs  him  how  to  use  them  with- 
out assistance.  She  is  up  very  early  mak- 
ing his  preparations,  and  goes  to  bed  later 
than  ever  at  night.  She  does  not  spare 
herself  at  all.  She  is  glad,  perhaps,  that 
she  has  no  time  to  think.  Her  hard  life 
at  this  period  ages  her  very  considerably. 
Or  she  is  aged,  perhaps,  through  some 
feelings  and  forebodings  of  which  she 
never  speaks.  She  is  always  very  cheer- 
ful and  practical  and  severe  with  Johnnie, 
who  is  as  melancholy  at  this  time  as  one 
can  be  at  six  years  old.  "  It's  for  your 
good,"  she  says,  shaking  him  to  empha- 
size her  remarks.  "  And  you  ought  to 
know  as  how  it  is. ' '  Then  the  end  comes. 
Johnnie's  sad  little  face  is  sticky  with  tears 
and  toffee,  which  has  been  administered 
to  him  as  a  consolation,  when  he  puts  it 
up  to  be  kissed.     "  Mind  you're  a  good 

59 


The  Mother 

boy,"  says  the  mother  unsteadily,  and 
with  a  grip  on  his  httle  arm  which 
he  understands  to  mean  love,  per- 
haps, better  than  if  it  were  a  delicate 
caress. 

"  He  is  going  to  be  a  dear,  happy  little 
fellow,"  says  the  Spinster  sweetly,  and 
the  cab  drives  away.  Two  tears — large, 
heavy,  unaccustomed  tears — fall  down 
Mrs.  Tasker's  homely  face  as  she  watches 
it.  And  then  she  turns  indoors,  address- 
ing herself  by  opprobrious  names  for  her 
weakness,  and  cleans  out  the  late  lodger's 
apartments  viciously. 

Six  months  later  Mrs.  Tasker  receives 
an  anonymous  letter.  It  is  very  illiterate 
and  misspelt.  But  it  is  so  far  compre- 
hensible that  when  the  mother  has  read 
it  her  head  falls  upon  her  folded  arms  on 
the  table  with  a  great  and  exceeding  bit- 
ter cry.  "  Your  son,"  says  the  letter — 
spelling  the  word  as  if  Johnnie  were  the 
chief  of  heavenly  bodies — "  is  being  treated 
that  bad  as  if  you  d6n't  come  and  take 
him  away  will  be  the  death  on  him.  She 
is  a  Beast.     She  has  done  the  same  by 

60 


The  Mother 

others.  Only  Johnnie  is  dehcater,  and 
it's  kilHng  him," 

It's  kilHng  him.  The  fierce  maternal 
heart  beating  in  Mrs.  Tasker's  gaunt  per- 
son makes  her  tremble  in  a  great  passion 
of  rage,  love,  and  yearning.  Come  and 
take  him  away.  It  sounds  so  easy,  and 
is  impossible.  Tasker  is  out  of  work — 
has  been  out  of  work  for  six  weeks.  The 
lodgers  represent  the  only  source  of  in- 
come. There  may  be,  perhaps,  five  shill- 
ings in  the  house.  But  there  certainly  is 
not  enough  for  a  journey  across  England. 
If  there  were  how  could  Mrs.  Tasker  leave 
the  house  ?  And  what  would  be  the  use 
of  sending  a  lout  like  Mr.  Tasker  (men  is 
all  fools),  who  has  never  been  twenty  miles 
from  his  native  village  in  his  life,  a  com- 
plicated cross-railway  journey  ? 

So  Mrs.  Tasker  takes  the  family  pen 
and  adds  a  little  water  to  the  remains  of 
the  family  ink,  and  writes  to  the  Spinster 
demanding  Johnnie's  return.  The  mother 
has  never  held  much  with  book  learning. 
Does  not  know  very  well  how  to  write,  or 
at  all  how  to  express  herself.     "  You  can 

6i 


The  Mother 

keep  the  money,"  she  says.  "  We  don't 
want  that.  Send  the  boy  back,  or  we 
will  have  the  law  of  you.  Send  Johnnie 
back  sharp,  and  curse  you,  curse  you, 
curse  you !  " 

The  curses,  which  she  spells"  cus,"  are 
in  some  sort  a  relief  to  this  poor,  ignorant, 
angry,  loving  soul.  The  coarse  vigor  of 
her  ill-spelt  abuse  comforts  her  for  the 
moment  a  little.  It  is  when  the  letter  is 
sealed,  stamped,  and  posted  that  her  ma- 
ternal tragedy  begins.  It  is  in  those  ter- 
rible days  of  waiting,  when  no  answer  is 
returned  to  the  letter  and  Johnnie  does 
not  come  home,  that  she  lives  through 
the  worst  hours  of  her  life. 

A  most  merciful  necessity  requires  that 
she  shall  work  as  usual,  that  she  shall 
cook  the  lodgers'  food  and  clean  their 
rooms,  that  she  shall  be  perpetually  busy 
from  morning  until  evening.  But  is  there 
any  work  that  can  make  her  forget  John- 
nie ?  It  seems  to  her  that  his  poor, 
pinched,  white  little  face  haunts  her. 
That  it  comes  always  between  her  and 
what   she   is   doing.     She    does    not  say 

62 


The  Mother 

much.  What  is  there  to  be  said  ?  Mr. 
Tasker  smokes  a  short  clay  pipe  in  front 
of  the  fire  in  stolid  gloominess.  He  does 
not  suggest  comfort.  Suggestions  are 
not  his  forte.  He  is,  in  a  dull  manner, 
shocked  when  Mrs.  Tasker,  for  the  first 
time  in  her  life  that  he  can  remember, 
refuses  to  eat.  She  pushes  away  the 
plate  of  untouched  food  and  sits  for 
a  minute  or  two  with  her  elbows  on 
the  table  and  her  head  resting  on  her 
hands. 

"  Don't  give  in,  'Liza,  don't  give  in," 
says  Mr.  Tasker  almost  piteously. 

"  It  don't  matter,"  says  Mrs.  Tasker. 

I  can  make  up  at  tea." 

But  she  does  not  make  up  at  tea.  Who 
shall  say,  in  these  interminable  days,  what 
terrible,  foolish,  impossible  imaginings 
creep  into  her  heart  ?  She  fancies  a 
thousand  ignorant  and  unlikely  things 
which  may  be  happening  to  the  child. 

"He  was  always  weakly,"  she  says. 
"  It  will  kill  him."  She  has,  indeed, 
hitherto  angrily  repudiated  suggestions 
that    Johnnie    is    less    strong   than  other 

63 


The  Mother 

children.     They  recur  to  her   now,   and 
she  cannot  disbeheve  them. 

He  were  a  pore  baby,  weren't  he  ?" 
she  says  huskily  to  her  husband,  and  hop- 
ing for  a  contradiction. 

He  were,  'Liza,  he  were,"  answers 
Mr.  Tasker,  gloomily. 

She  remembers,  how  well !  that  frail 
little  infancy.  She  used  to  compare  him 
with  other  babies,  and  insult  their  mam- 
mas dreadfully  by  vaunting  Johnnie's  su- 
periority in  her  rudest  and  bluntest  man- 
ner. 

"  But  his  legs  were  pore  little  sticks," 
she  murmurs  to  herself  sorrowfully.  "  And 
I  knowed  they  were  all  along." 

And  one  night,  when  she  and  her  hus- 
band have  been  sitting  silently  on  either 
side  of  the  hearth  watching  the  embers 
blacken  and  die  out,  her  rough,  listless 
hands  fall  at  her  side,  and  she  cries  out  in 
despair,  and  as  if  she  were  alone — 

"  Oh  Lord,  don't  be  for  hurting  our 
Johnnie  any  more !  We'd  sooner  he  died 
outright." 

And  the  next  day  Johnnie  comes.     The 

64 


The  Mother 

balmy  air  of  Torquay  has  not  been  suffi- 
cient to  counteract  the  baneful  effects 
of  insufficient  food  and  genteel  cruelty. 
Johnnie  is  very  ill  indeed. 

"  Will  he  live  ?  "  says  the  mother, 
"  God  help  you  !  "  answers  the  doctor, 
looking  into  her  strong,  homely,  haggard 
face.     "  Nothing  human  can  save  him," 

But  to  this  faithless  and  unbelieving 
generation  there  remains  one  great  mira- 
cle-worker, whose  name  is  Love. 


6s 


My  Lord 


i 


My  Lord 

"  Chacun  aime  comme  il  est." 

My  Lord  is  young  with  George  IV. 
He  loses  a  fortune  at  play,  and  another, 
amassed  by  a  pious  aunt  in  the  country, 
at  all  sorts  of  devilries.  He  has  thrashed 
the  watch  and  staked  an  estate  on  the 
cards  in  an  evening.  He  records  many 
years  after  how  he  enters  the  ring  with 
the  Regent,  and  how  the  First  Gentleman 
in  Europe,  with  an  exquisite  ease  and 
urbanity,  confesses  himself  beaten. 

My  Lord  is  on  the  turf,  where  he  wins 
and  flings  away  a  fortune  with  a  mad  gen- 
erosity: where  he  loses,  and  does  not  re- 
trench. He  is  dressed  with  the  careless- 
ness that  is  a  part  of  his  nature,  and  with 
a  richness  that  becomes  the  Court  of  the 


Regent. 


69 


My  Lord 

My  Lord  can  sing  a  song  with  the  best 
over  his  wine,  and  take  his  two  bottles — 
like  a  gentleman.  His  speech  is  gar- 
nished, even  in  very  old  age,  with  those 
flowers  of  expression  which  were  in  uni- 
versal vogue  in  his  youth.  He  recalls, 
forty  years  later,  a  hundred  stories  of  that 
mad  career  of  pleasure.  He  remembers 
with  a  curious  accuracy  a  thousand  de- 
tails respecting  his  companions  and  the 
manners  and  habits  of  that  wild  day.  He 
knows,  and  retails  with  perfect  wit  and 
point,  a  thousand  stories  of  the  Court 
which  have  never  crept  into  print.  His 
reminiscences  are  as  interesting  as  a  book 
of  scandalous  memoirs. 

My  Lord,  indeed,  has  pretty  well  beg- 
gared himself  before  he  is  thirty.  He 
marries  money.  And  money  in  the  per- 
son of  a  shrewish  wife  is  false  to  his  honor 
and  her  own.  His  daughter,  who  belongs 
to  her  mother's  faction,  marries  abroad, 
and  is  lost  to  him  for,  ever.  His  son, 
from  whom  he  has  hoped  everything,  is 
not  only  wild — which  indeed  My  Lord 
should    be    one    to    forgive    easily — but 

70 


My  Lord 

brings  dishonor  on  a  great  name  and  dies 
miserably. 

My  Lord  is  not  yet  sixty  years  old  when 
he  retires  to  Hamblin,  the  estate  in  the 
country  which  his  extravagances  have  left 
heavily  mortgaged,  and  his  neglect  has 
left  out  of  repair.  A  number  of  evil 
stories,  gathering  astonishingly  in  volume 
and  flavor  at  every  stage  of  the  journey, 
have  followed  him  from  town.  Virtue 
points  out  with  her  positive  finger  that 
this  old  age  of  poverty,  solitude,  and  dis- 
appointment is  but  the  just  and  natural 
harvest  of  that  astonishing  crop  of  wild 
oats  sown  in  that  wild  youth.  When  My 
Lord,  therefore,  appears  in  the  village 
with  his  lean  figure  stooping  a  little,  and 
his  narrow  eyes  extraordinarily  bright  and 
keen,  he  excites  that  exceeding  interest 
and  curiosity  which  it  is  believed  are 
never  roused  by  anything  less  entertain- 
ing than  a  reputation  for  iniquity.  Some 
persons  are  quite  shocked  to  see  him  in 
church  on  Sunday.  There  is  a  terrible 
story  current  of  him  for  a  little  while,  to 
the  effect  that  he  does  not  know  the  po- 

71 


My  Lord 

sition  of  the  Psalms  in  the  Liturgy.  But 
he  soon  mends  this  error,  and  lives  a  life 
of  so  much  retirement,  simplicity,  and 
apparently  virtue,  as  to  become  wholly 
uninteresting  to  everybody. 

After  a  time  My  Lord  takes  unto  him- 
self a  domestic  Chaplain,  who  lives  with 
him  the  greater  part  of  the  year.  The 
Chaplain  is  round-faced,  benevolent,  and 
kindly,  with  a  full  chin  above  his  white 
tie,  bespeaking  a  hundred  pleasant  hu- 
man virtues.  The  Chaplain  enjoys  port 
wine  in  the  most  honest  moderation — is 
in  no  sense  an  ascetic — has  a  heart  full  of 
charity  and  good-will  for  all  men — a  kindly 
sense  of  humor,  and  a  very  true  and  self- 
respecting  affection  for  My  Lord  his  pa- 
tron. 

"  I  don't  come  to  church  to  hear  your 
sermons,  Ruther,  you  know,"  says  My 
Lord,  "  which  are  damned  long  and  prosy 
— you  know  they  are.  I  come  to  look  at 
your  wife  listening  to  them." 

The    Chaplain's   wife,    whom    he    calls 

72 


Ivly  Lord 

Miriam,  is  very  sweet  and  simple  and 
delicate.  Miriam  has  brown  curls  shad- 
ing a  clear  forehead,  a  brown  silk  frock 
revealing  sloping  Early  Victorian  shoul- 
ders, and  the  most  tender,  candid  eyes  in 
all  the  world.  Miriam  is  of  gentler  birth 
than  her  husband,  whom  she  loves  and 
reveres  as  at  once  the  cleverest,  dearest, 
and  best  of  created  beings. 

My  Lord  has  not  often  met  the  Miriam 
type  of  woman.  Perhaps  never  before. 
At  first  he  does  not  understand  her.  He 
looks  at  her  across  the  dinner  table  with 
his  unsteady  hand  playing  with  his  glass 
and  a  sort  of  perplexity  in  his  shrewd  old 
eyes.  "  So  damned  innocent,"  he  says  to 
himself.  "  So  damned  innocent."  Per- 
haps damned  innocence  has  not  been  the 
leading  characteristic  of  the  lady  acquaint- 
ances of  his  youth.  He  wonders  at  it  a 
little  at  least — in  Miriam — as  if  it  were 
some  new  thing. 

His  wonder,  indeed,  gives  place  very 
soon  to  another  feeling.  He  has  at  last 
for  this  woman  the  purest  and  tenderest 
afTection  he  has  ever  known. 

71 


My  Lord 

"  I  have  the  devil  of  a  reputation,  Ru- 
ther,"  says  My  Lord,  grimly.  "  Don't  you 
do  me  the  honor  to  be  jealous  of  me  ?  " 

"  No,  my  Lord,"  says  the  Chaplain, 
looking  at  his  patron. 

And  indeed  My  Lord  has  for  Miriam 
such  a  feeling  as,  in  a  happier  circum- 
stance, he  might  have  felt  for  a  child  of 
his  own. 

There  are  a  thousand  ways  in  which 
Miriam  appeals  to  My  Lord's  ancient 
sense  of  humor.  He  likes  to  hear  her 
say  "Hush!"  in  her  shocked,  gentle 
voice,  when  from  immemorial  habit  he 
ornaments  his  speech  with  an  oath.  He 
has  not  the  less  a  most  tender  respect  for 
her  purity.  When  she  asks  questions,  in 
her  damned  innocence,  about  his  youth,  he 
bowdlerizes  his  old  stories  to  an  extent 
that  the  Chaplain  does  not  even  recognize 
them. 

"I  lie  horribly,"  says  My  Lord  when 
Miriam  has  left  the  two  to  their  wine. 
"  Past  absolution,  eh,  Ruther  ?  " 

But  the  Chaplain,  who  may  very  possi- 
bly be  right,  thinks  not. 

74 


My  Lord 

Miriam's  most  staunch  and  simple  be- 
lief in  My  Lord's  goodness  amuses  him 
vastly  at  first.  Another  feeling  mingles 
with  his  amusement  after  a  while  as  he 
looks  into  her  clear  eyes. 

"  We  were  a  cursed  bad  lot  in  those 
days,"  he  says.  "If  you  knew  how  bad 
you  wouldn't  have  anything  to  say  to  me." 

But  Miriam  says,  "  Yes,  I  should,"  and 
nods  her  head  so  that  the  brown  Victorian 
curls  shake  a  little,  and  puts  her  gentle 
hand  for  a  moment  into  My  Lord's  wea- 
zened old  fingers. 

For  the  first  time  in  his  life  the  wild- 
ness  of  his  youth  rests  a  little  uneasily 
upon  that  accommodating  organ  which  is 
called  My  Lord's  conscience. 

"  Gad!  "  he  says,  with  that  light  cyni- 
cism of  manner  which  may  or  may  not 
hide  a  deeper  feeling.  "  I  feel  almost 
like  a  convert.  No  thanks  to  your  prosy 
old  preachings,  Ruther.  Don't  flatter 
yourself." 

And  indeed  the  Chaplain,  who  is  the 
most  humble  and  simple  of  men,  does 
not  do  so  at  all. 

75 


My  Lord 

In  the  summer  mornings  it  is  Miriam's 
habit  to  play  with  her  children  on  the 
great  sloping  lawns  before  the  house. 
My  Lord  watches  her  more  often  than  he 
knows  perhaps  from  the  open  windows  of 
his  library. 

She  comes  in  to  see  him  sometimes, 
and  looks  up  with  a  soft  wistfulness  in 
her  pretty  eyes  at  the  great  books  on 
their  shelves. 

"  I  wish  I  could  read  some  of  these," 
she  says,  taking  down  a  French  work  and 
holding  it  up  to  him. 

God  forbid!  "  says  My  Lord  piously. 

But  indeed  Miriam's  French  is  neither 
of  a  quantity  nor  quality  to  do  her  any 
harm. 

She  goes  back  to  the  children  presently. 
My  Lord  sits  long  with  the  book,  which 
he  does  not  read,  before  him.  He  has 
aged  rapidly  lately.  He  feels  sometimes 
very  old  indeed.  The  hand,  with  the 
ruffles  of  a  long-past  fashion  hanging  over 
it,  is  very  lean  and  unsteady.  He  puts 
down  at  first  to  approaching  senility  a 
certain  odd  sensation  of  something  that 

76 


My  Lord 

might  almost  be  shame  for  that  wild  past 
that  comes  to  him  with  Miriam.  He 
ascribes  to  a  weakened  intelligence  a  sort 
of  emotion  he  knows  when  Miriam  plays 
Handel  and  Haydn  in  the  half  lights  at 
the  harpsichord.  Sometimes  on  Sunday 
evenings,  after  dinner,  and  before  the 
darkness  has  come,  she  draws  out  the 
harp  from  its  corner  and  sings  to  it  in  the 
sweetest  voice  in  the  world.  She  sings 
to  it  the  old  religious  music  which  is  of 
no  fashion,  but  for  all  time.  Her  white 
frock  and  the  fair  piety  of  her  bent  face 
make  one  of  her  hearers  at  least  think,  as 
it  is  probable  he  has  not  often  thought 
before,  of  the  angels. 

He  sits,  as  he  has  told  the  Chaplain, 
during  the  prosy  discourses  on  Sunday, 
and  looks  at  her  tender,  rapt  face  and  her 
quiet  folded  hands.  She  brings  the  chil- 
dren to  him  sometimes.  One  night  he 
catches  sight  of  her  in  the  room  set  apart 
as  a  nursery  bending  over  one  of  them  in 
its  cot,  with  a  face  all  beautiful,  human, 
and  maternal,  and  her  lips  moving  in  a 
prayer. 

77 


My  Lord 

His  seared  old  heart  is  touched  at  this 
time  by  a  thousand  emotions  which  it  has 
never  known,  or  to  which  it  has  long  been 
dead.  He  is  less  cynical — to  Miriam. 
The  stories  of  his  wild  youth  have  lost 
some  of  their  attraction  for  him,  and  he 
relates  them,  even  to  the  Chaplain,  very 
seldom. 

Is  it  a  conversion,  as  he  has  suggested 
with  a  sneer  ?  God  knows.  Is  a  conver- 
sion possible  at  threescore  years  and  ten, 
with  a  character  formed  by  immemorial 
habit  and  marked  with  the  impression  of 
a  life  ?     God  knows  also. 

One  day  My  Lord  is  taken  ill.  It  is  a 
long  illness,  to  which  there  can  be  no  end 
but  one.  He  lies  in  the  great  state  bed- 
room, in  the  great  state  bed  which  has 
sheltered  three  sovereigns.  If  he  be 
changed  in  heart,  as  is  surmised,  he  is 
scarcely  changed  in  manner  at  all.  The 
simplicity  of  Miriam,  his  gentle  nurse,  at 
once  amuses  and  touches  him  a  thousand 
times  a  day.  He  tells  her,  in  a  voice 
somewhat  feebler  than  usual,  the  royal 
anecdotes  of  that  royal  bedchamber.     He 

78 


My  Lord 

likes  to  watch  her  absorbed,  reverent  face 
as  she  listens,  for  Miriam  is  loyalist  to  the 
core,  as  a  good  woman  should  be,  and  has 
the  Divine  Right  of  Kings  written  indeli- 
bly on  her  simple  heart. 

"  But  they  were  human  too — some  of 
them,"  finishes  My  Lord  with  a  sort  of 
chuckle,  and  turning  on  his  pillow  to  look 
at  his  listener. 

She  sits  by  his  side  the  greater  part  of 
the  day.  She  brings  her  prayer-book  and 
a  volume  of  sermons  given  to  her  on  her 
marriage.  My  Lord  listens  with  an  exem- 
plary patience  to  the  long-winded  wordi- 
ness of  the  Georgian  divine.  He  thinks, 
by  a  certain  stoplessness  in  the  reader's 
method,  that  she  does  not  always  grasp 
the  somewhat  obscure  meaning.  He  is 
sure  by  her  sweet  voice  and  tender  face 
that  she  is  wholly  edified  nevertheless. 
Sometimes  during  the  readings  she  puts 
one  of  the  babies  on  the  foot  of  the  pa- 
tient's bed,  that  he  may  have  the  inestim- 
able privilege  of  looking  at  it  when  he 
feels  inclined. 

"  See  us,  Ruther,"  says  My  Lord  when 

79 


My  Lord 

the  Chaplain  finds  them  thus  one  day. 
"  After  my  way  of  living,  doesn't  this 
strike  you  as  a  damned  odd  way  of 
dying  ?  " 

On  Sunday  Miriam  reads  the  Order  for 
Morning  Prayer  with  My  Lord  stumbling 
through  the  responses.  The  situation 
strikes  him  as  ludicrous  at  first;  but  Mir- 
iam is  very  sweet  and  grave  and  good. 
He  hears  the  rhythm  of  her  voice  in  the 
tender  majesty  of  the  old  prayers  as  one 
hears  sweet  singing  in  a  dream.  Miriam 
is  infinitely  conscientious,  and  reads  them 
every  one.  And  when  the  Chaplain  points 
out  to  her  that,  in  consideration  of  the 
patient's  weakness,  she  might  omit  to 
pray  for  the  Parliament,  My  Lord  from 
his  bed  says,  "  No,  no.  Dammy,  they 
need  it,"  and  begs  that  Miriam  may  be 
left  to  her  own  devices. 

My  Lord  grows  gradually  weaker  as  the 
summer  advances.  Before  the  flowers  have 
faded  and  the  leaves  fallen  he  is  too  weak 
to  talk  at  all.  He  sleeps  a  great  deal. 
When  he  is  awake  his  eyes  follow  Miriam, 
and  when  she  is  more  divinely  simple  than 

So 


My  Lord 

usual  his  lips  wear  a  smile.  It  is  appar- 
ent that  when  she  leaves  him  he  is  un- 
easy. Her  simplicity  is  worth  at  such  a 
time  all  the  wit  and  sprightliness  in  the 
world. 

Before  the  end  com.es,  in  a  sultry  night, 
My  Lord  talks  ramblingly,  with  a  new 
strength,  of  his  wild  youth,  of  the  com- 
panions long  dead,  who  belonged  with 
himself  to  a  society  most  brilliant,  cor- 
rupt, and  artificial.  He  starts  once  from 
his  pillow  with  an  oath.  By  his  bedside 
Miriam  is  kneeling  bewildered,  a  white 
fieure  in  the  half-darkness. 

He  repeats  the  snatch  of  a  wild  song  in 
his  dying  voice,  and  cries,  with  an  exceed- 
ing bitter  cry,  the  name  of  the  son  who 
disgraced  it. 

But,  before  he  dies,  for  one  quiet  mo- 
ment his  reason  comes  back  to  him.  And 
the  last  impression  on  the  mind  of  My 
Lord,  who  has  been  a  sinner,  is  of  Miriam 
with  clear  uplifted  face  and  folded  hands. 


8i 


'Melia 


'Meli 


la 


"  L'esprit  est  toujours  la  dupe  du  coeur." 

'Melia  is  of  the  gentility,  genteel. 
'Melia's  Pa — she  speaks  of  him  fondly  by 
this  abbreviation — is  a  dreadfully  success- 
ful, fat,  pompous,  aggressive,  well-to-do 
tradesman.  'Melia's  Ma  is  a  stout  lady 
bursting  apoplectically  out  of  a  satin 
dress.  'Melia's  sisters  are  crushingly  su- 
perior persons  in  black  silk  at  Peter  Rob- 
inson's. And  'Melia's  brothers  are  the 
class  of  young  men  who  shout  witticisms 
to  each  other  from  bicycles  on  the  Brigh- 
ton road  on  half-holidays. 

'Melia  is  perhaps  two-and-thirty.  She 
has  a  face  very  refined  and  delicate,  a 
taste  which  leads  her  into  pronounced 
fashions  and  pearls  in  the  morning,  and 
a  large  and  terrible  fringe,  which  she  calls 
her  "  Princess  M'y,"  and  wears  with  per- 

85 


'Melia 

feet  modesty,  gentleness,  and  simplicity. 
'Melia  is,  it  is  to  be  feared,  a  simple  per- 
son in  many  ways.  At  the  chic  school  at 
which  her  Pa  placed  her  at  great  expense 
(mentioning  the  exact  sum  it  cost  him 
every  day  at  dinner),  'Melia  found  herself 
unable  to  take  in  any  of  the  polite,  super- 
ficial, and  wholly  unsuitable  accomplish- 
ments which  the  other  young  ladies  may 
be  described  as  having  lapped  up  thirstily. 
At  the  present  time,  when  the  literary 
Julia  from  Peter  Robinson's,  reading  the 
last  feminine  and  fictional  treatise  on  the 
immorality  of  man,  with  her  feet  on  the 
sofa,  says,  "  Lor,  'Melia,  you  are  a  cure! 
and  after  all  Pa  spent  on  your  learning, 
never  so  much  as  to  take  up  a  book — 
well,  I'm  sure,"  'Melia  shows  by  the  flush 
in  her  pale  face  that  she  is  sensible  of  the 
justice  of  the  accusation. 

But  if  her  literature  never  goes  beyond 
the  careful  study  of  a  penny  fashion 
paper — and  indeed  it  does  not — she  has 
some  little  commercial  shrewdness  to 
take  its  place.  'Melia  is  never  to  be 
cheated.       She  is  never  taken  in  by  the 

86 


'Melia 

blandishments  of  shop-walkers  when  she 
goes  shopping  in  the  fashionable  region 
which  she  speaks  of  as  Up  West,  or 
crushed  by  the  scorn  of  the  stylish  person 
behind  the  counter,  "  Through  Pa  hav- 
ing been  in  the  linen  drapery  himself," 
says  'Melia  with  perfect  simplicity,  and 
meaning  no  aspersion  upon  the  parental 
character,  "  I  know  what  tricks  they're 
up  to."  Which  tricks  she  repudiates 
with  a  flush  of  excitement  and  resolution 
upon  her  delicate  face.  It  is  fancied, 
indeed,  that  'Melia's  own  integrity  is  of 
that  kind  which  would  cheat  an  enemy  to 
serve  a  friend  with  perfect  straightfor- 
wardness and  a  conscience  as  untroubled 
as  a  baby's  sleep. 

At  home  it  is  to  be  feared  that  she  is 
not  nearly  so  beloved  as  loving.  She 
can't,  in  fact,  read  like  Julia,  and  can 
only  sit  with  eyes  full  of  a  dumb  sort  of 
wistfulness  and  a  very  tender  and  longing 
admiration  when  Clara  dashes  out  one  of 
her  four  marches  on  the  cottage  piano  in 
the  evenings,  leaving  that  polite  and 
elderly     instrument     (which     has     been 

S7 


'Melia 

bought  second-hand  from  a  quietly  dec- 
orous spinster  in  the  country)  quite 
shocked  and  astonished.  Beyond  an 
aptitude  for  trimming  hats,  which  is  a 
good  deal  trespassed  on  by  her  female 
relatives,  'Melia  has  indeed  no  accom- 
plishments at  all,  unless  one  counts  such 
very  old-fashioned  ones  as  kindness  and 
love.  'Melia  is  devoted  to  her  family. 
If  she  is  indeed  superior  to  them  in  re- 
finement of  heart  as  she  is  in  refinement 
of  feature,  her  devotion  to  her  Ma,  who 
is  a  florid  and  breathless  person,  is  not  in 
the  least  disturbed  by  that  lady's  com- 
fortable earthiness,  or  by  seeing  her  drink 
stout  in  a  shay  outside  a  public-house  on 
Bank  Holiday.  While,  if  'Melia  is  her- 
self vulgar,  as  persons  seeing  her  in  a 
flower  of  a  bonnet  always  slightly  on  one 
side,  her  somewhat  disordered  Princess 
M'y,  and  a  style  of  clothing  which  she 
fondly  fancies  to  be  the  style  Up  West, 
have  supposed,  she  at  least  escapes  the 
supreme  vulgarity  of  being  ashamed  of 
vulgar  relations. 

As  for  her  Pa,    'Melia  speaks  of  him 

88 


'Melia 

rather  regretfully,  but  with  no  kind  of 
malice,  as  rather  harsh.  The  tradesman, 
whose  god  is  prosperity,  can't,  indeed, 
forgive  'Melia  her  inability  to  get  on  in 
life,  and  a  simplicity  and  unselfishness 
which  would  be  enough  to  ruin  any  one's 
worldly  progress.  "  But,  lor!"  says  'Melia, 
cominpr  in  rather  flushed  and  with  marks 
of  recent  tears  on  her  face  to  take  tea 
with  a  friend,  after  a  battle  royal  with 
her  parent,  "  all  Pas  have  their  little 
whims,  and  us  gals  have  to  humor  them." 
She  forgives  Pa,  whose  little  whims  are, 
it  is  to  be  feared,  only  too  frequent,  with 
a  forgiveness  which  is  as  complete  as  a 
child's.  She  forgives,  if  she  perceives 
(which  she  probably  does  not)  that  there 
is  need  for  forgiveness,  the  maternal 
anxiety  to  marry  her  off  to  any  one  as 
soon  as  possible,  and  the  maternal  re- 
sentment against  a  nature  which  is  full  of 
those  good  things  that  lead  to  no  Avorldly 
advancement.  She  is  patient — how  pa- 
tient Heaven  knows! — with  Julia  and 
Clara,  who  are  dreadfully  superior  and 
successful.      She   fits   their  dresses  with 

89 


'Melia 

inimitable  good-temper  and  her  mouth 
full  of  pins.  She  thinks  that  their  florid 
complexions  and  show-room  figures  are 
very  beautiful  indeed.  She  is  proud  of 
their  good  position,  and,  in  some  lonely, 
far-off,  indefinable  manner,  of  their  pos- 
session of  the  young  men  who  walk  out 
with  them  on  Sundays.  She  does  not 
indeed  wish  for  a  suitor  of  her  own.  Has 
a  self-respect  which  repudiates  with  a 
very  fine  dignity  the  advances  of  the 
young  men  in  Pa's  shop — Pa  having  now 
gone,  in  his  daughter's  phrase,  into  the 
crockery.  'Melia,  indeed,  directly  at- 
tacked on  the  point,  relegates  her  own 
marriage  to  some  distant  period  when 
she  will,  she  says,  with  entire  good  faith 
and  simplicity,  look  about  among  the 
widowers. 

In  the  meantime  the  great  love  of  her 
heart  goes  out  to  her  brother.  Alfred, 
whom  Amelia  calls  "  H'alf"  by  way  of 
endearing  diminutive,  is,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, a  depressing  young  man  to  look 
at,  with  a  very  mournful  complexion.  As 
he  divides  his  time  between  a  stuffy  shop 

90 


'Melia 

and  a  recumbent  position  on  a  bicycle, 
this  unhealthiness  is  not  surprising.  It 
does  not,  at  least,  take  from  the  quantity 
or  the  quality  of  'Melia's  affection.  She 
waits  upon  H'alf  when  he  comes  home  in 
the  evening.  She  talks  about  him  to  her 
friends  with  a  quaint  pride  which  is 
touching,  though  it  possibly  also  strikes 
them  in  the  light  of  a  bore.  He  is  good 
enough  to  allow  her  to  mend  his  socks, 
and  look  at  him  over  them  in  the  even- 
ing in  the  parlor  with  eyes  very  fond  and 
kind.  And  when  H'alf  is  taken  ill — not 
very  ill  at  first — 'Melia  at  once  constitutes 
herself  his  nurse. 

The  illness  begins  about  the  time  of  the 
family's  annual  trip  to  Great  Yarmouth. 
'Melia  has  always  been  told  that  she  en- 
joys these  holidays,  and  believes  it.  Her 
faith  even  carries  her  so  far  as  to  make 
her  think  that  she  enjoys  the  sea  journey 
which  begins  them.  She  has  been  wont 
on  such  occasions  to  sit  on  deck  with 
her  complexion  varying  from  green  to 
gray,  her  fringe  very  much  out  of  curl, 
her  stylish  bonnet  tilted  dejectedly  over 

91 


'Melia 

one  ear,  and  her  eyes  full  of  patience  and 
apology,  while  Pa,  who  is  dreadfully  blus- 
terous and  rather  qualmish  in  temper, 
abuses  her  as,  "  You're  a  nice  one,  you 
are,  to  bring  out  and  give  pleasure  to. 
This  is  a  pretty  return,  this  is,  for  me 
and  Ma  having  took  your  ticket,  and  spent 
no  end  to  let  you  travel  saloon  and  gen- 
teel. This  is  gratitood  after  all  the 
money  as  has  been  spent  on  you,  this  is  " 
— and  to  apologize  very  humbly  indeed 
for  the  base  thanklessness  of  a  nature 
which  cannot  duly  appreciate  even  the 
Yarmouth  boat.  On  this  present  occa- 
sion indeed  'Melia  thinks  nothing  of  her- 
self and  everything  of  Alfred.  When 
they  have  arrived  at  their  destination  she 
wheels  the  sofa  of  the  smart  lodging  they 
occupy  close  to  the  open  window,  so  that 
H'alf  lying  there  may  be  cheered  by  hav- 
ing mysterious  musicians,  performing 
fleas,  and  a  low  grade  of  nigger  minstrel 
as  close  to  him  as  possible. 

In  the  morning,  brazen  and  hot,  with 
the  keen  Yarmouth  wind  nipping  round 
the  corners,  when  the  rest  of  the  family 

92 


'Melia 

have  started,  violently  energetic  and 
early,  on  some  distant  excursion,  it  is  left 
to  'Melia  to  wheel  the  invalid  about  in 
his  chair,  and  bear  with  the  caprice  and 
fractiousness  of  a  failing  health.  She 
takes  him  sometimes  on  to  the  sands, 
black  with  excursionists,  buys  him  "  Tit- 
Bits  "  out  of  a  shabby  purse,  and  sits  with 
her  back  leaning  up  against  his  chair 
while  she  calculates  in  a  simply  eccentric 
mind,  whose  want  of  mathematical  fac- 
ulty has  greatly  enraged  her  Pa  in  the 
shop,  the  precise  amount  of  benefit  each 
breeze  from  the  sea  is  likely  to  convey 
to  her  invalid.  When  H'alf  is  recom- 
mended to  be  on  the  sea,  and  not  merely 
by  it,  it  is  'Melia  who  takes  him  what  she 
fatally  miscalls  a  "Shilling  Pleasure" 
with  a  sublime  self-sacrifice;  and  when 
H'alf,  whom  the  air  seems  to  revive  a 
little,  observes  that  'Melia  don't  seem  par- 
tial to  the  motion,  'Melia,  fanning  herself 
faintly  with  a  pocket  handkerchief,  re- 
plies, "  Oh,  it  don't  matter,  H'alf.  It's 
good  for  the  system,"  and  even  attempts 
a  smile.     When  the  others  have  returned 

93 


'Melia 

from  their  excursion  she  sHps  out  some- 
times, with  the  chic  bonnet  blowing  about 
on  her  head  in  a  manner  which  Clara, 
who  is  exquisitely  neat  and  selfish,  says 
is  scarcely  respectable,  and  buys  H'alf  a 
relish  to  his  tea  in  the  shape  of  a  crab  or 
winkles,  which  seem  calculated  to  put  an 
end  to  his  life  immediately. 

He  does  indeed  get  worse  as  the  days 
go  on,  and  as  he  gets  worse  clings  more 
and  more  to  'Melia,  who  has  been  so 
vague  and  irresponsible  all  her  life  that 
only  the  greatness  of  the  need  and  of  her 
devotion  could  make  her  different  now. 
The  Doctor  is  himself  shocked,  first  of 
all,  at  the  appearance  of  this  nurse,  with 
her  simple,  flighty  manner,  her  untidy 
hair,  and  a  style  of  dress  which  includes 
aluminium  lockets  at  nine  o'clock  in  the 
morning;  but  he  finds,  pretty  soon,  that 
'Melia  is  worth  many  Claras  and  Julias, 
and  has,  under  that  veneer  of  eccentric 
gentility,  a  heart  most  faithful  and  tender. 

She  nurses  her  patient  at  least  with  a 
devotion  which  has  no  fault  but  excess. 
She  is  with  him  all  day,  and  almost  all 

94 


'Melia 

night.  When  he  wakes,  as  he  is  accus- 
tomed to  do,  in  the  early  dawn,  after  a 
brief  and  troubled  sleep,  he  finds  her 
standing  by  his  bedside  removing  curling 
pins  from  her  Princess  M'y,  and  looking 
down  at  him  with  pitiful  eyes.  When  he 
apologizes  for  asking  her  to  shake  his  pil- 
lows for  perhaps  the  fiftieth  time  in  an 
hour  she  answers  as  usual,  "  Lor,  H'alf ! 
it  don't  matter,"  with  her  vague  and 
cheerful  smile.  She  tries  to  obey  the 
Doctor's  mandate,  and  change  the  cur- 
rent of  the  patient's  ideas  by  describing 
to  him  the  select  fashions  that  Julia  and 
Clara  have  met  on  the  pier,  while  she 
refrains,  with  a  tact  which  is  genius — or 
love — from  conveying  to  him  the  least 
hint  that  she  misses  the  sight  of  these 
Hories  herself.  She  does  indeed  run  out 
occasionally,  once  to  say  to  a  recreant 
chemist,  with  her  business  instincts  roused 
and  her  delicate  face  rather  flushed  and 
nervous,  "  None  of  your  stale  drugs  for 
us,  young  man  ;"  while,  another  time, 
she  runs  the  length  of  the  parade,  with 
her  bonnet  as  usual  half  off,  breathlessly, 

95 


'Melia 

to  bribe  a  Mysterious  Musician  to  take 
up  his  place  for  half  an  hour  daily  before 
H'alf's^  windows,  and  winks  so  enor- 
mously at  this  artist  when  he  arrives  on 
the  scene  of  action,  as  a  signal  to  him  to 
preserve  the  dark  secret  between  them, 
that  he  not  unnaturally  supposes  her  to 
be  mad.  She  sleeps — and  says,  eagerly, 
and  nervous  lest  Ma  should  take  her  post 
from  her,  that  she  sleeps  soundly — in  a 
chair  by  the  patient's  bed.  Yet  there  is 
never  a  whisper  of  her  name  from  the 
feeble  lips  that  she  cannot  hear;  and  she 
has  known,  for  many  weeks  at  least,  no 
sleep  so  profound  that  the  touch  of  a  weak 
hand  cannot  rouse  her.  She  is,  indeed, 
at  every  hour,  quite  willing,  loving,  pa- 
tient, and  eccentric.  She  repudiates 
help  as  she  repudiates  the  idea  that  her 
own  health  will  not  stand  the  strain  upon 
it.  And  a  great  color  comes  into  her 
face  when  Clara  suggests  that  H'alf  must 
be  getting  pretty  tired  of  'Melia,  and 
would  like  to  see  more  of  herself  or  Julia 
for  a  change. 

To  her  sisters  the  sick  man  is  a  brother 

96 


'Melia 

— and  one  of  many  brothers.  To  'Melia 
he  is  the  only  creature  out  of  all  the 
lonely  world  to  whom  she  is  necessary; 
the  first  and  only  one  who  has  made  great 
claim  on  her  time,  her  attention,  and  her 
affection ;  the  only  one  who  is  in  some 
sense  dependent  upon  her  and,  as  it  were, 
at  her  mercy.  So  that  it  may  be  imagined 
how  she  loves  him. 

Towards  the  end  she  never  leaves  him. 
She  is  glad — unconsciously,  perhaps — 
that  the  nursing  is  painful  and  repulsive. 
If  it  were  easy  she  would  have  no  way  of 
showing  her  affection.  Her  simple  and 
devoted  mind  takes  no  account,  until  very 
nearly  the  end,  of  her  own  pain  and  weari- 
ness of  body.  And  then,  compelled  for 
H'alf's  sake  to  heed  it,  she  finishes,  in  a 
tumbler,  the  remains  of  H'alf's  discarded 
medicines,  with  a  simple  satisfaction  and 
an  unquestioning  faith  which  seems  to 
have  its  reward. 

For  it  is  not  until  the  hand  which  she 
has  held  all  night  in  her  living  one  is  cold 
and  dead  that  the  old  Doctor,  coming  into 
the  room  very  early  in  the  morning,  finds 

7  97 


'Melia 

her  asleep — in  the  deep  sleep  of  great 
exhaustion — at  her  post. 

Many  years  later,  when  H'alf,  whose 
living  and  dying  have  been  but  an  episode 
in  their  lives,  has  been  more  or  less  for- 
gotten by  his  elder  sisters,  'Melia,  who 
is  still  vague  and  simple,  and  has  not  yet 
found,  or  perhaps  even  looked  for,  the 
widower  of  her  promise,  comes  to  stay 
with  Clara,  and  is  discovered  by  that  cor- 
rect lady,  one  Sunday  night,  crying  softly 
to  herself,  with  her  fhghty  head  resting, 
in  a  very  ungenteel  manner,  upon  her 
arms  on  the  kitchen  table. 

"  Lor!  'Melia,"  says  Clara,  "  what  a 
turn  you  give  me !     Is  anybody  dead  ?  " 

"  No  one — newer — than  H'alf,"  says 
'Melia,  rather  brokenly,  and  with  a  sort 
of  apology  in  her  voice.  "  But  it  do 
seem  as  he  were  the  only  one  I  ever  come 
by-;;-who  couldn't  get  on  without  me." 

Which  is  the  single  excuse  that  can  be 
made  for  such  a  foolishness  and  fidelity. 


98 


The  Laborer 


The  Laborer 

"  Ce  qu'on  gagne  en  gloire  on  le  perd  en  amour." 

John  lives  all  his  life  in  a  remote  Nor- 
folk village.  He  belongs  to  a  generation 
that  has  almost  passed  away.  When  he 
is  a  boy  the  Battle  of  Waterloo  has  still 
to  be  fought  and  the  cheap  newspaper  to 
be  born. 

John  is  just  a  little  thick  and  agricul- 
tural. He  has  no  wit  at  all,  but  perhaps 
a  very  little  latent  wisdom.  He  can,  of 
course,  neither  read  nor  write.  In  his 
time  such  accomplishments  are  regarded 
as  entirely  superfluous  for  the  class  to 
which  he  belongs.  His  knowledge  of 
politics,  therefore,  does  not  go  beyond  a 
doggerel  and  patriotic  ballad  about  Bon- 
aparty  which  he  has  picked  up  in  the  vil- 
lage alehouse.  His  interest  as  a  young 
man  in  the  fate  of  the  empire  cannot  be 

lOI 


The  Laborer 

said  to  be  particularly  keen.  He  is  in- 
deed at  that  date  entirely  engrossed  in 
mangel-wurzels  and  love, 

John  has  to  get  up  very  early  in  the 
morning  to  go  about  his  business.  He 
earns,  by  a  great  deal  of  hard  work,  a 
very  modest  wage.  He  puts  by  some  of 
it — for  a  purpose.  Every  now  and  then 
he  falls  into  iniquity,  and  takes  a  little 
too  much  beer.  But  upon  the  whole  he 
has  a  good  deal  of  self-respect,  and  even 
a  certain  sort  of  independence  and  dig- 
nity. When  the  squire  or  the  parson  stops 
to  have  a  talk  with  him  he  pulls  at  a  red- 
dish forelock  at  very  frequent  intervals, 
to  express  a  most  honest  respect.  John 
is  always  in  church  on  Sunday.  He  sings 
the  familiar  hymns  which  he  learned  by 
heart  in  childhood  in  a  voice  wholly  fer- 
vent and  unmusical.  During  the  sermon 
he  looks  at  Sally,  whom  he  is  going  to 
marry  some  day,  and  who  sits  very  pretty 
and  conscious  under  her  shady  hat. 

John  has  no  club  to  go  to  in  the  winter 
evenings.  He  dozes  comfortably  in  his 
own  kitchen  instead.      There  is  no  Coal 

I02 


The  Laborer 

Fund,  or  Savings  Bank,  or  Working  Men's 
Institute  provided  for  his  benefit.  He  is 
not  hemmed  in  by  charities  like  his 
grandson  of  to-day.  There  is  no  compe- 
tition to  provide  for  John  Hving  and  to 
pay  his  funeral  expenses  when  dead.  Per- 
haps John  is  not  the  worse  man  because 
he  is  wholly  self-dependent.  When  in- 
deed for  the  first  and  only  time  in  his 
stalwart  life  he  falls  ill,  the  parson  brings 
him  a  couple  of  bottles  of  port,  and  the 
squire's  daughter,  who  is  pretty  and 
pious,  produces  quivering  jellies  from  a 
covered  basket.  The  parson  looks  in 
upon  John  pretty  often.  He  tells  a  good 
story  or  two  to  appeal  to  the  patient's 
somewhat  stolid  risible  faculties,  and 
says  rather  clumsily,  as  he  leaves  him, 
"  Don't  let  the  dust  grow  on  your  Bible, 
John."  And  John,  gratefully  remem- 
bering the  port,  says,  "  Nay,  nay,  sir." 
And  when  the  squire's  daughter  comes 
next  day  she  reads  him  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount. 

As  a  lover  John   is  somewhat  clumsy 
and  exceedingly  faithful.      He  has  lived 

103 


The  Laborer 

next  door  to  Sally  all  her  life,  and  re- 
members her  when  she  was  quite  a  little 
girl.  Sally  is  very  modest  and  blushing, 
with   a  round  little  waist  and    bloominrr 

o 

country  cheeks.  When  they  are  married 
it  pleases  John  very  much,  as  he  smokes 
his  pipe  stolidly  in  front  of  the  fire  in 
the  evening,  to  see  Sally  sitting  on  a  foot- 
stool trimming  her  Sunday  hat  and  re- 
garding the  blue  ribbons,  with  her  pretty 
head  first  on  this  side  and  then  on  that. 

John  does  not  pay  Sally  any  compli- 
ments. His  speech  is  quite  uncouth  and 
to  the  point.  Many  of  his  expressions 
are,  it  is  to  be  feared,  what  would  now 
be  considered  coarse.  But  if  he  uses 
words  and  says  openly  things  which 
would  cause  polite  persons  to  blush, 
John's  heart  has  many  of  those  finer  in- 
stincts which  are  invidiously  called  the 
instincts  of  a  gentleman. 

John  has  the  greatest  respect  for  Sally. 
During  their  courtship  he  satisfies  his 
pugilistic  tendencies  with  much  zest  upon 
a  rejected  suitor  of  Sally's  who  ventures 
to  speak  of  her  disrespectfully.      He  has 

104 


The  Laborer 

a  certain  reverence,  moreover,  in  his 
affection  for  Sally's  babies,  and  is  espe- 
cially attached  to  the  first,  who  is  a  little 
girl.  John  counsels,  with  a  certain  heavy 
paternal  wisdom,  that  the  baby  be  soon 
"  took  to  the  parson." 

"  It  keeps  'em  healthy,"  says  John. 
And  Sally  being  also  imbued  with  this 
simple  superstition,  the  baby  is  "  took 
to  the  parson  "  and  christened  by  a  script- 
ural name  as  soon  as  may  be. 

John's  life  is  not  troubled  with  event- 
fulness.  Once,  indeed,  a  bad  time  comes. 
John  is  out  of  work  and  Sally  and  the 
children  fall  ill.  The  children,  with 
John's  tender  and  clumsy  help,  scramble 
somehow  into  convalescence;  but  Sally 
is  very  bad  indeed.  John  sits  by  her  bed- 
side hour  after  hour.  He  is  very  stupid 
and  loving.  He  does  not  know  at  all 
what  to  do  except  hold  her  hand,  and 
now  and  then  straighten  her  pillows. 

"  You  are  not  a-dying,  Sally,  are  you  ?" 
he  says  desperately.  And  Sally,  opening 
her  eyes  and  seeing  his  haggard  face, 
says,  "  No,  John — don't  worrit  for  me." 

105 


The  Laborer 

And  John  sits  very  quietly  until  the 
night  covers  them  both. 

Once  John  goes  to  Norwich,  He  re- 
gards this  as  a  very  great  event  indeed. 
He  dates  all  time  from  this  visit.  "  Old 
parson  died,"  he  says,  "  a  matter  o'  six 
years  after  I  see'd  Norwich."  The 
coming  of  the  new  parson  is  a  great  event 
also.  The  marriage  of  the  squire's 
daughter  a  momentous  occasion,  of  which 
not  a  single  detail  is  ever  forgotten. 

"  That  was  the  time  as  you  had  your 
new  gownd,"  says  John.  And  Sally 
smiles  a  little  as  she  remembers  the 
"gownd"  fresh  and  charming.  By  this 
time  her  youthful  prettiness  has  faded  a 
little.  But  though  her  figure  is  no  longer 
delicate  or  her  complexion  blooming,  John 
is  still  convinced  in  his  faithful  conserva- 
tism that  Sally  is  the  most  beautiful  crea- 
ture in  the  world.  He  loves  her  just  as 
he  loved  her  when  they  were  first  mar- 
ried. They  are  not,  indeed,  sentimental. 
With  ten  shillings  a  week  and  five  chil- 
dren there  is  no  time  for  sentimentality. 
But    that    there  is  no  time  for  faithful- 

io6 


The  Laborer 

ness,  goodness,  and  affection — who  shall 
say  ? 

In  due  time  the  children  grow  up  and 
work  for  themselves.  John  is  still  a 
laborer,  having  been  unable  out  of  ten 
shillings  a  week  to  lay  by  a  competence 
for  his  old  age.  But  either  he  does  not 
think  of  the  future  at  all  or  else  he  has, 
in  his  stolid  way,  a  never-spoken  trust  in 
a  Providence  who  has  been  always  kind. 
And  one  day  Sally  dies,  and  the  light  of 
his  simple  life  goes  out  for  ever. 

To-day  in  a  quaint  little  almshouse  in 
that  benighted  Norfolk  village  there  lives 
a  very  old  man.  He  is  so  old  that  the 
present  is  all  dim  and  obscure  to  him,  and 
only  the  past  stands  out  clearly.  He 
sits  very  contentedly  in  his  garden  in  the 
summer  sunshine  and  dozes  a  great  deal. 
He  hears  in  a  pleasant  indistinctness  the 
murmuring  of  the  bees  and  the  songs  of 
the  birds.  The  voices  of  the  people  who 
come  to  see  him  sound,  too,  a  great  way 
off,  and  the  meaning  of  what  they  ask  him 
takes  a  long  time  to  reach  his  old  brain. 

"  He  ought  to  be  intensely  interesting, 

107 


The  Laborer 

you  know,"  says  Antiquaria,  full  of  intel- 
ligence.    But  he  is  not. 

"  What  do  you  remember  to  have  heard 
of  Waterloo  ?  "  asks  Antiquaria  at  the  top 
of  her  voice. 

Nothing,  at  first.  Then  he  murmurs 
very  indistinctly  a  line  or  two  of  the 
old  alehouse  ballad  about  Bonaparty. 

Parson  said  'twas  Waterloo  day  as  I 
bought  the  ring  for  Sally,"  he  adds  more 
clearly. 

"  Wasn't  there  great  excitement  in  the 
village  about  the  battle  ?"  persists  Anti- 
quaria. 

And  he  looks  at  her  with  his  old  eyes 
and  says,  "  I  dunno.  'Twas  the  day  I 
bought  Sally  the  ring." 

That  is  all.  If  he  had  ever  taken  any 
interest  in  the  fate  of  Europe,  which  he 
did  not,  he  would  have  forgotten  it.  And 
now  only  remembers  a  crisis  in  the  his- 
tory of  nations  as  the  day  he  bought  Sally 
the  ring. 

As  the  years  pass  a  "thousand  changes 
take  place  round  him,  and  he  does  not 
perceive  them.      A  modern  and  spiritual 

io8 


The  Laborer 

ecclesiastic  has  long  replaced  the  old  par- 
sons with  their  muscular  Christianity, 
their  good  stories,  and  their  port  wine. 
The  place  in  church  where  Sally  sang 
Tate  and  Brady  devoutly  beneath  the  de- 
murest coal-scuttle  bonnet  is  occupied  by 
correct  little  boys  with  neat  surplices  and 
Gregorian  chants. 

The  village  politicians  have  long  come 
to  the  comforting  and  fashionable  conclu- 
sion that  whatever  is,  is  wrong,  and  that, 
as  a  preliminary  to  any  sort  of  true  justice 
and  equality,  all  existing  institutions 
must  be  razed  to  the  ground. 

And  John,  who  used  to  be  embarrassed 
to  foolishness  by  the  honor  of  a  chat  with 
the  squire,  and  was  not  even  aware  that 
he  was  miserable,  downtrodden,  and  op- 
pressed, blinks  his  old  eyes  pleasantly  in 
the  sunshine  and  lives  in  his  recollections. 
He  is  capable  at  last  of  no  interest  at  all 
except  in  that  fair,  far  past  which  he  spent 
with  Sally.  The  present  is  a  vague  and 
pleasantly  confusing  dream.  The  people 
round  him  are  only  shadows.  He  has  to 
be  fed  and  tended  like  an  infant.     When 

log 


The  Laborer 

the  vicar  reads  to  him  a  pious  work  in  a 
shout  he  responds  "  A-mon,  A-mon," 
just  as  the  clerk  responded  in  church  in 
his  youth.  But  of  the  substance  of  that 
pious  work  he  comprehends  nothing  at 
all.  His  simple  mind  and  his  tired  body- 
are  alike  at  rest. 

One  summer  the  woman  who  takes  care 
of  him  vociferates  loudly  in  his  ear  that 
she  has  had  a  letter  to  say  his  grand- 
daughter is  coming  to  see  him.  In  spite 
of  Mrs.  Jones's  shouts,  her  words  convey 
very  little  to  the  poor,  simple  old  mind. 
She  shakes  John  a  little,  not  unkindly, 
for  in  a  perfectly  practical  way  she  is  fond 
of  him,  but  with  the  idea,  perhaps,  of 
shaking  her  meaning  into  his  brain.  And 
he  comprehends  at  last  that  he  is  to  have 
a  visitor.  All  his  visitors  like  to  hear  the 
lines  about  Bonaparty,  and  he  murmurs 
them  over  to  himself  in  his  tottering  voice 
so  as  to  be  in  readiness.  On  the  auspi- 
cious day  he  has  his  chair  wheeled  as 
usual  into  the  little  garden.  He  dozes 
there,  also  as  usual.  And  wakes  up  sud- 
denly,  and  there   before   him — with   her 

no 


The  Laborer 

blooming  country  face  and  the  sunshine 
on  her  hair  and  the  bonnet  with  blue  rib- 
bons hanging  from  her  arm — is  Sally  at 
one-and-twenty. 

"  Why,  it's  Sally!  "  says  the  old  voice 
with  a  piping  childish  cry  of  joy.  "  It 
seems  a  sight  of  time  you've  left  me 
alone.  Have  you  been  minding  the 
children,  lass  ? " 

Perhaps  she  has — from  Heaven.  The 
grand-daughter,  who  has  never  seen  Sally, 
but  has  withal  some  of  Sally's  tenderness 
in  her  heart,  does  not  undeceive  him.  She 
kneels  by  his  side  and  puts  her  cheek 
warm  and  young  against  his  wrinkled 
face.  And  he  babbles  to  her — as  Sally — 
with  a  complete  childish  delight.  He  re- 
calls a  hundred  incidents  of  his  simple  life. 
He  strokes  her  hair  with  his  feeble  fingers. 
And  when  Mrs.  Jones  comes  out  to  invite 
the  visitor  to  take  "  a  bite  of  something  " 
before  she  leaves,  with  one  old  hand  over 
the  girl's  John  is  asleep  as  tranquilly  as 
his  child  may  have  slept  on  Sally's  breast 
sixty  years  ago. 

Ill 


The  Laborer 

"  His  mind  must  be  in  a  shocking  state 
of  muddle,  you  know,"  says  Antiquaria, 
with  her  intellectual  nose  in  the  air  when 
she  hears  of  the  episode.  "  A  low  sort 
of  existence,  altogether,  isn't  it  ?  The 
whole  life  must  have  been  terribly  narrow 
and  material." 

Perhaps,  Antiquaria.  Very  narrow, 
very  honest,  and  very  stupid.  Very  ten- 
der towards  Sally  and  the  children,  very 
God-fearing,  very  blundering,  human, 
and  simple.  A  life,  as  seen  by  Modern 
Enlightenment,  wholly  discouraging. 

But  as  seen  by  Heaven — who  knows  ? 


112 


Intellecta 


Intellecta 

"  Les  femmes  courent  risque  d'etre  extremes  en  tout." 

The  intellect  itself  is  not  objectionable. 
In  fact,  intellect  is  an  excellent  thing.  It 
is  a  better  thing  than  genius  for  practical 
domestic  purposes.  For  genius  is  apt  to 
be  a  nuisance.  It  always  gets  up  late, 
and  is  not  particular  about  its  bath.  It 
is  not  at  all  practical,  and  the  tradesmen 
fail  to  understand  it.  No,  the  fault 
seems  to  lie  in  the  use  that  Intellecta 
makes  of  her  mind — not  in  the  mind 
itself. 

Who  has  not  heard  of  the  Scotchman 
who  introduced  his  native  thistle  into 
some  colony  where  the  soil  was  rich  and 
the  rainfall,  it  is  to  be  presumed,  bounti- 
ful ?  Nothing  but  thistle  grows  in  that 
land  now,  and  the  Scotchman  has  left. 
Some  imprudent  women  have  been  intro- 

115 


Intellecta 

ducing  intellect  and  other  things  into  the 
feminine  mind,  and,  like  the  thistle,  they 
are  beginning  to  spread. 

Intellecta  makes  her  first  appearance  at 
a  certain  town  on  the  Cam  where  young 
women  have  most  distinctly  and  unblush- 
ingly  followed  young  men,  Intellecta 
attends  lectures  which  are  not  intended 
for  her  delicate  ears,  and  the  men  are 
forced  to  blush,  merely  because  Intellecta 
is  unmoved. 

She  drags  her  hair  back  from  a  brow 
which  would  look  better  beneath  a  foolish 
feminine  fringe,  and  while  the  lecturer 
lectures  she  leans  that  brow  upon  a  large, 
firm  hand.  She  is  preternaturally  serious, 
and  there  is  a  certain  harassed  go-ahead 
look  in  her  eyes  before  which  even  a 
junior  dean  may  quail.  The  lecturer  is 
an  elderly  person  of  the  unabashed  type. 
"  And  now,  gentlemen,"  he  says  from 
time  to  time,  which  is  rude,  because  it 
ignores  Intellecta.  She,  however,  does 
not  appear  to  notice.  She  leans  the 
rounded  pensive  brow  on  her  hand  and 
simply  laps  up  knowledge.      One  can  see 

n6 


Intellecta 

it  bulging  the  pensive  brow.  The  dragged 
back  hair  gives  her  head  a  distended,  un- 
comfortable look,  as  if  it  is  suffering  from 
the  effects  of  mental  indigestion. 

Intellecta's  father  is  a  well-known  dis- 
senting minister  in  a  large  manufacturing 
town.  He  knows  the  value  of  learning 
on  the  principle  that  the  pauper  must 
needs  know  the  value  of  money,  and 
Intellecta  is  sent  to  a  high  school.  She 
graduates,  or  whatever  they  do  at  high 
schools,  and  obtains  a  scholarship.  There 
is  no  small  rejoicing  in  a  chaste,  dissent- 
ing way;  and  very  few  people  know  that 
only  three  girls  are  entered  for  the  schol- 
arship. One  retires  with  measles;  the 
second,  Intellecta's  sole  rival,  bursts  into 
hysterical  tears  at  the  sight  of  the  Alge- 
bra paper,  and   Intellecta  simply  canters 

in. 

What  Intellecta  does  not  know  in  the 
way  of  knowledge  is  not  worth  knowing 
after  she  takes  that  scholarship.  But 
some  say  that  knowledge  may  come  while 
wisdom  lingers. 

From   the  very   first   Intellecta's    only 

"7 


Intellecta 

joy  is  an  examination  paper.  She  studies 
these  in  the  privacy  of  her  apartment. 
She  walks  down  Petty  Cury  with  bun- 
dles of  them  under  her  arm.  All  her 
learning  is  acquired  from  a  competitive 
point  of  view.  She  does  not  want  to  be 
learned ;  she  desires  to  pass  examinations. 
Her  knowledge  is  a  near  approach  to  cun- 
ning. Moreover,  she  passes  her  examina- 
tions. She  exceeds  her  father's  fondest 
dreams.  She  dashes  the  undergraduates' 
hopes  to  the  ground. 

She  continues  to  attend  lectures,  sur- 
rounded now  by  a  guardian  atmosphere 
of  learning.  She  despises  "  boys"  more 
than  ever.  She  sees  through  them,  and 
knows  that  they  are  only  working  because 
they  are  afraid  of  their  fathers,  or  to  earn 
a  living  in  the  future.  Whereas,  she  is 
working  for  something  higher  and  nobler 
— to  wit,  the  emancipation  of  woman — 
the  march  of  intellect.  All  the  while  her 
hair  recedes  farther  and  farther  back  from 
her  brow,  as  if  the  march  of  intellect  en- 
tails pushing  through  tight  places. 

"  We  are  progressing,"  she  is  heard  to 

ii8 


Intellecta 

say  in  a  deep  masculine  voice  to  a  lady 
with  short  gray  hair  in  King's  Cross  Sta- 
tion. Short  gray  hair  is,  by  the  way, 
sometimes  conducive  to  cold  shivers 
down  the  Philistine  back.  "  We  are  pro- 
gressing. We  are  getting  our  feet  upon 
the  ladder." 

And  good  serviceable  understandings 
they  are,  with  square  toes.  That  is  the 
last  of  her,  so  far  as  Cambridge  is  con- 
cerned. From  this  time  her  walk  is  upon 
the  broader  stage  of  life. 

She  is  next  seen  at  an  intellectual  gath- 
ering in  a  picture  gallery,  where  she 
comes  suddenly  round  a  corner  upon  two 
young  people,  who  are  not  ■  intellectual, 
discussing  ices  and  other  pleasant  things 
away  from  the  busy  hum  of  debate. 

Intellecta  sniffs.  Which  is  rather  to 
her  credit,  as  a  remnant  of  a  vanishing 
femininity.  The  question  this  evening  is 
one  of  political  economy.  How,  in  fact, 
are  a  number  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  as- 
sembled in  a  picture-gallery  in  Piccadilly 
to  reduce  the  population  of  China  ?  In- 
tellecta is  great.    She  proves  mathematic- 

119 


Intellecta 

ally  that  things  are  really  coming  to  a 
pretty  pass.  If  China  is  allowed  to  go  on 
in  this  reckless  way  some  apocryphal  sup- 
ply will  exceed  a  fictitious  demand.  At 
this  point  an  old  gentleman  wakes  up  and 
says,  "  Hear,  hear!"  And  immediately 
afterwards,  "Don't,  Maria!"  which  in- 
duces one  to  believe  that  he  has  been 
brought  to  see  the  error  of  his  ways  by 
the  pinch  marital. 

Intellecta  speaks  for  twenty-five  min- 
utes in  a  deep,  emotional  voice,  and  when 
she  finishes  there  is  in  the  atmosphere  a 
singular  feeling  of  being  no  farther  on. 
She  has  spoken  for  twenty-five  minutes, 
and  she  has  said  nothing. 

Others  speak  with  a  similar  result. 
They  are  apparently  friends  of  Intellecta's 
— persons  who  agree  to  be  tolerant  of 
each  other's  voices,  and  on  certain  even- 
ings they  invite  the  benighted  to  come 
and  assimilate  knowledge.  They  soon  re- 
duce the  population  of  China  by  carrying 
a  few  motions  in  that 'picture-gallery  in 
Piccadilly.  And  there  are  people  who 
pretend   that    it    is    useless    to    educate 

I20 


Intellecta 

women  even  in  face  of  such  grand  results 
as  this ! 

"  Of  course,"  Intellecta  is  heard  to  say 
at  a  dinner-table,  "  of  course  Dr.  Kudos 
may  be  a  great  man.  I  do  not  say  that 
he  is  not.  I  went  in  to  dinner  with  him 
the  other  evening;  I  tried  him  on  several 
subjects,  a-nd  I  cannot  say  that  he  had 
much  that  was  new  to  tell  me  on  any  of 
them." 

That  is  the  sort  of  person  she  is.  She 
is  fearless  and  open.  She  would  question 
the  accuracy  of  Gibbon  if  that  reverend 
historian  was  not  beyond  her  reach.  The 
grasp  of  her  mind  is  simply  enormous. 
She  will  take  up,  say,  political  economy, 
study  it  for  a  couple  of  months,  and  quite 
master  it.  She  is  then  ready,  nay,  anx- 
ious, to  lay  down  the  law  upon  matters 
politico-economical  in  a  mixed  assembly. 
If  she  is  in  the  room,  her  deep  emotional 
voice  may  generally  be  heard  laying 
down  the  law  upon  some  point  or  other. 

Languages  she  masters  eii  passant. 
She  learns  French  thoroughly  in  five 
weeks  in  order  to  read  a  good  translation 

121 


Intellecta 

of  one  of  Tolstoi's  novels.  She  has  not 
time  for  Russian,  she  says.  She  has  not 
the  time,  that  is  all.  Having  acquired 
the  tongue  of  the  lightsome  Gaul,  she 
proceeds  one  evening  to  discourse  in  it  to 
a  gentleman  who  has  no  English ;  and  the 
Frenchman  is  apparently  struck  dumb — 
possibly  by  her  learning. 

Intellecta  is  now  getting  on  towards 
middle  age,  as,  alas!  are  those  who  sat 
with  her  in  the  lecture-rooms  by  the  Cam. 
She  still  has  the  go-ahead  look :  there  are 
one  or  two  gray  hairs  among  those  dragged 
back  from  her  forehead ;  and  a  keen  ob- 
server— one  who  has  known  her  all  along 
— may  detect  in  her  spectacled  eyes  a 
subtle  dissatisfaction.  Can  it  be  that  Intel- 
lecta is  born  before  her  time  ?  It  would 
almost  seem  that  the  world  is  not  quite 
ripe  for  her  yet.  She  is  full  of  learning. 
She  has  much  to  say  upon  all  subjects. 
She  is  a  great  teacher.  But  why  that 
mystic  smile  behind  the  spectacles  of  Dr. 
Kudos  ? 

"  She  only  repeats,"  he  says  gently, 
"  She   only  teaches   what    she  has  been 

122 


Intellecta 

taught.      She    is   nothing   but    a  talking 
book." 

The  old  gentleman  may  be  right. 
There  may  be  something  in  him,  though 
Intellecta  cannot  find  it.  For  he  has 
seen  many  men  and  many  things  in  books 
and  elsewhere.  It  may  be  that  Intellecta 
can  only  teach  what  she  has  been  taught. 
And  what  she  has  learned  at  Cambridge 
Whitechapel  does  not  want  to  know. 
That  which  she  has  seen  at  Whitechapel 
is  odoriferous  in  the  nostrils  of  Cambridge. 

That  dissatisfied  look  haunts  those  who 
remember  laughing  at  Intellecta  when  she 
attended  her  first  lecture.  Some  of  those 
men  are  celebrated  now;  some  are  leading 
lights  at  the  Bar;  others  are  pillars  of  the 
Church;  the  rest  are  merely  obscure  and 
happy,  and  have  quite  forgotten  to  be 
learned.  But  Intellecta  is  where  she 
was.  She  is  still  a  learned  woman,  and 
nothing  else.  She  is  still  looking  for  an 
outlet  for  all  the  knowledge  that  is  in  her 
brain,  which  has  never  germinated — which 
she  has  not  been  able  to  turn  to  account. 
Intellecta    despises   women    who   have 

123 


Intellecta 

husbands  and  babies,  and  no  high  aspira- 
tions. She*  despises  still  more,  perhaps, 
those  who  dream  vaguely  of  the  encum* 
brances  mentioned.  But  even  those 
whose  dreams  can  never  be  realized  have 
not  the  look  that  Intellecta  has  in  her 
eyes. 

She  is  very  busy.  She  addresses  meet- 
ings of  factor}^  girls  in  the  Mile  End  Road, 
and  she  will  tell  you  in  her  earnest  tones 
that  she  is  due  in  Bradford  to-morrow 
evening,  where  a  great  work  is  being  car- 
ried on.  She  is  always  improving  her 
mind  during  the  intervals  snatched  from 
the  work  of  telling  others  to  go  and  do 
likewise.  She  still  finds  time  to  drop  in 
on  a  science  and  master  it.  The  old 
familiar  curse  of  the  lecture-room  is  still 
upon  her;  and  she  laps  up  eagerly  knowl- 
edge which  the  limited  male  intellect  is 
inclined  to  think  she  would  be  better 
without.  But  it  is  not  for  the  sake  of  the 
knowledge  that  she  seeks  it.  It  is  the 
old  story  of  the  examination  paper  over 
again. 

Her  chief  aim   in  life  is  to  forward  the 

124 


Intellecta 

cause  of  education.  She  is  one  of  the 
prime  movers  in  the  great  schemes  for 
bringing  knowledge  to  the  masses — in- 
stead of  letting  the  masses  come  and  take 
it  when  they  have  need  of  it.  She  may 
be  seen  at  cheap  suburban  lectures  in  an 
ill-fitting  cloth  dress,  leaning  that  heavy 
brow  on  the  large  firm  hand,  drinking  in 
the  lecturer's  periods. 

She  does  not  go  much  to  church.  She 
complains  that  the  clergy  are  deficient  in 
intellectual  power.  There  is  a  mystery 
overhanging  her  religious  tenets.  She 
has  learned  too  much.  It  is  often  so 
with  women.  One  finds  that  as  soon  as 
they  know  more  than  the  local  curate 
they  begin  to  look  down  upon  St.  Paul, 
good  Bishop  Butler,  and  a  few  others  who 
may  not  have  been  intellectual  as  the 
word  is  understood  to-day,  but  who 
nevertheless  wrote  some  solid  stuff  in 
their  time. 

Intellecta  is  not  a  tragedy.  Not  by 
any  means.  She  would  be  indignant  at 
the  thought.  She  is  naturally  of  a  grave 
temperament — all     great     thinkers     are. 

12^ 


Intellecta 

She  is  devoid  of  any  sense  of  the  ridicu- 
lous, which  is  a  great  blessing — for  Intel- 
lecta. She  is  profoundly  convinced  that 
she  is  an  interesting  woman.  She  feels 
at  the  cheap  lectures  that  the  local  young 
women  of  mind  nudge  each  other  and 
ask  who  she  is.  She  trusts  they  will  pro- 
fit by  her  example,  and  in  time  they  may 
perhaps  acquire  her  power  of  concentra- 
tion— they  may,  with  perseverance,  learn 
to  bring  their  whole  mind  as  she  brings 
hers  (a  much  larger  affair)  to  bear  upon 
the  question  in  hand.  She  does  not  know 
that  they  are,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  wonder- 
ing where  on  earth  she  bought  that  hat, 
and  longing  for  the  lecture  to  be  over 
that  they  may  walk  home  with  a  person 
who  is  waiting  for  them  outside. 

There  is  no  one  waiting  for  Intellecta 
outside — not  even  a  cabman. 

Being  devoid  of  humor,  she  is  naturally 
without  knowledge  of  the  pathetic,  and 
therefore  does  not  see  herself  as  others 
see  her.  She  is  probably  unaware  of  that 
dissatisfied  look  in  her  eyes.  It  is  a  phy- 
sical matter,  like  a  wrinkle  or  a  droop  of 

126 


Intellecta 

the  lips.  It  is  the  small  remnant  of  the 
woman  quailing  before  the  mind. 

"  Knowledge  is  power,"  she  always 
says  when  driven  into  a  corner  by  some 
argumentative  and  mistaken  man. 

"  Yes — but  it  is  not  happiness,"  Dr. 
Kudos  replies.  "  And  we  are  placed  here 
to  try  and  be  happy." 

"  We  are  making  progress,"  says  In- 
tellecta still.  "  We  are  getting  our  feet 
upon  the  ladder." 

Yes,  Intellecta ;  but  whither  does  that 
ladder  lead  ? 


127 


The  Soldier-Servant 


The  Soldier-Servant 

"  La  politesse  de  I'esprit  consiste  a  penser  des  choses 
honnetes  et  delicates." 

James  has  been  through  the  Crimea. 
He  has  a  number  of  medals,  of  which, 
very  likely,  he  is  vastly  proud,  but  which 
he  never  wears.  He  has  very  seldom 
been  heard  to  give  an  account  of  his  ex- 
ploits. But  then  he  is  very  seldom  heard 
to  give  an  account  of  anything,  being  a 
perfect  bulwark  of  silence,  and  preferring 
to  contribute  nothing  towards  a  conversa- 
tion except  a  few  grunts. 

Manners,  indeed,  are  not  James's 
strong  point.  The  Crimea  may  have 
rubbed  them  off.  Or  he  may  always  have 
despised  them.  He  is  now  employed 
as  a  gardener  and  handy  man  on  week- 
days, while  on  Sundays  he  blows  the 
organ  at  a  neighboring  church  with  in- 
domitable perseverance  and  strength. 

131 


The  Soldier-Servant 

It  must  not,  however,  be  supposed  that 
James  knows — or  wishes  to  know — any- 
thing about  matters  ecclesiastical.       He 
blows  the  organ  with  the  air  of  one  who 
would    say,    "  This    seems    to    me   con- 
founded nonsense.       Why  can't  you  say 
your  prayers  without  all  this  noise  ?   Still, 
you  must  have  your   whims,  I   suppose, 
and   I   must  humor   them."     He  so  far 
humors  the  whims  of  the  Parson-in-Chief 
as  to  take  down  for  his  benefit  the  Easter 
texts  with  which  the  guileless  James  has 
ornamented  the  church  at  Christmas.     It 
appears,  very  likely,  to  James,  that  one 
verse  of  Scripture  does  quite  as  well  as 
another,  and  is  equally  true  at  any  season 
of  the  year.     But   he  undoes  his  handi- 
work with  a  perfectly  good-natured  scorn- 
fulness,  and  with  the  best-tempered  and 
impolitest  of  grins  upon  his  countenance. 
James,   both   as  gardener  and  church- 
man, has  the  old  soldierly  virtue  of  im- 
plicit obedience   developed  to  an  extent 
for  which   the   ordinary  civilian   is  quite 
unprepared.       When  his  mistress — a  lady 
of  vacillating  turn  of  mind — says,  "  James, 


132 


The  Soldier-Servant 

you  really  must  kill  that  cat,"  on  the  spur 
of  an  impetuous  moment,  the  cat  is  in 
dying  agonies  five  minutes  later,  and 
while  the  mistress  is  lamenting  its  decease 
in  the  drawing-room  she  can  behold 
James  from  the  windows  mowing  the  lawn 
in  the  calm  consciousness  of  virtue  and 
with  an  unmoved  diligence. 

When  the  master  complains  that  the 
whole  flower  garden  contains  nothing  but 
pinks — which  James  has  been  growing, 
with  much  trouble,  in  serried  ranks  like 
an  army — by  the  next  morning  there  is 
not  a  single  pink  left  in  the  garden,  and 
James  may  be  seen  quietly  pitchforking 
a  bonfire  behind  the  shrubbery. 

James's  horticultural  instincts  incline 
as  a  rule  towards  the  useful  rather  than 
the  beautiful,  and  he  cultivates  vast  quan- 
tities of  cabbages  with  perfect  steadfast- 
ness and  indifference  to  the  fact  that  no 
one  wants  or  eats  them.  But  he  has  so 
much  of  the  true  gardener  nature  within 
him — in  his  case  entirely  free  and  un- 
trammelled— that  when  Miss  Laura  trips 
into   the    garden    with    a    smile,  a  rustic 

133 


The  Soldier-Servant 

basket,  and  a  pair  of  scissors,  he  shouts 
from  the  cabbage-bed,  "  Why  don't  you 
leave  them  'ere  roses  alone?  "  And  Laura 
retires  quite  abashed  into  the  house. 
"  James's  rudeness  is  really  dreadful, 
Charles,"  says  the  mistress.  When  he  is 
shown  the  new  baby,  and  asked  if  it  is 
not  a  remarkably  fine  child,  he  is  under- 
stood to  say,  with  his  contemptuous 
smile,  and  between  grunts,  "  Pretty  fair, 
pretty  fair,"  and  when  the  mistress  points 
out  to  him  some  beautiful  drawings  in  a 
weekly  paper  illustrative  of  the  Crimea 
he  gives  way  to  a  deeply  scornful  guffaw. 

It  is  surmised  that  James  has,  on  the 
whole,  rather  a  poor  opinion  of  the 
weaker  sex.  He  listens  to  the  mistress's 
This  will  be  best,  James,  or,  perhaps, 
that,  or  what  do  you  think  of  a  third 
(and  totally  opposite)  alternative  ?  with  a 
good-natured  tolerance  for  a  race  of  be- 
ings who  cannot  make  up  their  minds,  or 
have  no  minds  to  make  up. 

He  never  flirts  with  the  maids,  his  dis- 
134 


The  Soldier-Servant 

position  being  infinitely  removed  from  any 
species  of  gallantry.  Besides,  he  has  a 
wife  at  home.  The  wife — familiarly  'Liza 
— is  a  voluble  and  excited  female  of 
shrewish  tongue  and  a  particularly  ener- 
getic temper.  Fifteen  years  ago,  when 
she  beguiled  the  unwary  James  into  mat- 
rimony, she  may  very  likely  have  been  an 
attractive  person  in  her  style.  That 
James  could  at  any  time  have  been  at- 
tractive in  his  style  is  scarcely  conceiv- 
able. But  very  likely  his  stalwart  six 
feet  and  his  red  coat  did  much  better  than 
the  honeyed  words  and  flattering  phrases 
of  which  he  can  never  have  had  to  accuse 
himself. 

James  sits  at  home  in  the  evenings 
after  his  work  and  tranquilly  peruses  an 
exciting  manual  on  Bulbs.  As  a  rule 
James  does  not  hold  much  with  reading, 
considering  it  an  unpractical  and  even 
feminine  employment,  and  having  met  in 
the  course  of  his  own  experience  a  num- 
ber of  good  men  who  did  particularly  well 
without  it. 

But  Bulbs  are  a  duty.     They  may  also 
135 


The  Soldier-Servant 

be  a  refuge  from  'Liza.  So  strong  is  the 
force  of  habit  that  her  running  accompani- 
ment of  volubiHty  does  not  in  the  least 
disturb  the  placid  James  at  his  litera- 
ture. 

When  'Liza  is  more  than  usually  ob- 
jectionable— which  happens  on  an  average 
about  once  a  week — James  sends  her  to 
Coventry.  She  abuses  him  with  a  tongue 
which  it  is  to  be  feared  is  not  a  little 
coarse.  But  it  is  conceivable  that  the 
army  has  prepared  James  for  some  slight 
lack  of  refinement,  just  as  it  has  incul- 
cated in  him  a  habit  of  indomitable  self- 
control.  James  never  abuses  'Liza.  He 
is  a  rock  of  patience  and  silence.  He 
immerses  himself  deeply  in  the  Bulbs  and 
sits  calm  and  unmoved  amid  the  domestic 
thunders. 

James  has  children.  Boys,  for  the  most 
part,  to  whom  he  has  conscientiously  done 
his  duty  by  a  periodical  thrashing  in  the 
back  yard.  Albeit  James  has  a  heart  for 
these  children — a  heart .  which  is  even 
very  soft  and  kind.  And  there  is  a  rough 
justice   in  his  treatment  of  them  which 

136 


The  Soldier-Servant 

they  very  Hkely  prefer  to  the  mother's 
unreasonable  kisses  and  blows. 

There  is  one  little  daughter  to  whom 
James's  affection  goes  out  with  a  great 
strength  and  devotion.  The  little  daugh- 
ter has  inherited  to  a  marked  degree  his 
silent  ways  and  faithful  heart.  Her 
mother,  with  the  terrible  plain  speaking 
of  the  poor,  has  condemned  her  to  her 
face  as  an  unlikely  child,  and  as  ugly  as 
they're  made.  And  Nelly  has  hidden  that 
poor  ugly  little  face  on  her  father's  rough 
shoulder,  and  has  found  in  his  awkward 
kindness  and  homely  care  for  her  as  happy 
a  child-life  as  can  be. 

She  sits  on  James's  knee  while  he  reads 
Bulbs.  He  takes  her  to  church  with  him 
on  Sundays,  seats  her  near  him,  and  ad- 
dresses encouraging  and  audible  remarks 
to  her  in  the  pauses  of  his  organ-blowing. 

On  Bank  Holidays  and  other  gala  occa- 
sions the  two  go  country  walks  together. 
Neither  of  them  say  much,  both  consider- 
ing very  likely  that  conversation  mars 
enjoyment,  and  that  they  get  a  great  deal 
too  much  of  it  at  home.     But  James  has 

137 


The  Soldier-Servant 

Nellie's  small  hand  in  his  vast  horny  palm, 
and  it  is  to  be  believed  that  they  under- 
stand each  other  perfectly. 

On  one  memorable  occasion  they  spend 
a  happy  day  at  Margate.  The  beauties 
of  sands  black  with  excursionists  and  of 
a  jetty  packed  to  suffocation  appeal  to 
both  very  much  indeed.  Perhaps  upon 
the  principle  that  one  is  never  so  much 
alone  as  in  a  crowd.  Or  with  the  idea 
that  this  is  seeing  a  fashionable  watering- 
place  at  the  height  of  its  glory  and  to 
perfection.  Or  merely  because  they  are 
together. 

Nellie  is  very  tired  after  so  long  a  day. 
Tired,  pale,  and  shivering,  and  'Liza 
says,  "  You've  done  for  this  child,  drat 
you!  "  with  a  great  deal  of  force  and  en- 
erg)',  and  carries  Nellie  up  to  bed  in  a 
temper.  'Liza,  like  a  great  many  other 
people,  is  always  cross  when  she  is  anx- 
ious. And  that  night  James  tramps  a 
long  six  miles  for  the  doctor.  There  is 
a  cold  fear  creeping  about  his  heart,  the 
presence  of  which  he  is,  somehov/,  afraid  of 
acknowledging,  and  he  says  to  the  doctor, 

138 


The  Soldier-Servant 

"  Not  much  wrong — nothing  but  a  cold," 
several  times  over,  and  with  deep  grunts. 
It  is  nothinp-  but  a  cold  at  first.  But  it 
is  a  cold  that  turns  to  a  high  fever,  which 
raees  in  Nellie's  frail  body  and  beats 
down  her  feeble  strength.  James  does 
not  leave  her  room  for  a  week.  His  master 
considers  so  much  devotion  very  unneces- 
sary, and  intimates  to  James  that  his 
place  cannot  be  kept  open  for  him.  And 
James  damns  the  place  quietly,  and  lets 
it  go — as  he  would  let  go  Heaven  for 
NelHe.  He  nurses  the  child  as  a  woman 
might.  Or,  perhaps,  as  no  woman  could. 
He  is  profoundly  ignorant  of  disease.  It 
is  to  be  feared  that  he  is  at  times  pro- 
foundly foolish.  The  child  loses  strength 
every  day  before  his  eyes.  The  delirium 
and  fever  fight  fiercely  for  her  weakly  life. 
It  is  her  father's  part  to  watch  a  struggle 
in  which  he  can  do  nothing,  and  his 
rugged  face  gets  haggard  and  ghostly. 
Nellie  lives — so  far  as  she  can  be  said  to 
be  living  at  all — upon  milk  and  brandy; 
and  one  day,  the  first  for  a  fortnight, 
James  leaves  her  in  charge  of  'Liza.      He 

139 


The  Soldier-Servant 

walks  over  to  the  doctor.  A  rapid  walk, 
full  of  purpose,  during  which  he  takes  no 
heed  of  anything  by  the  way.  He  im- 
plores the  doctor — a  request  which  is, 
somehow,  pathetically  ignorant  and  ridic- 
ulous— to  let  Nellie  have  something  solid 
to  eat. 

"  'Liza  could  do  a  beefsteak  very  ten- 
der," he  says.  And  there  is  a  look  so 
miserable  and  desperate  in  the  man's  face 
that  the  doctor  does  not  even  feel  like 
smiling. 

It  takes  more  than  medical  assurance 
to  convince  James  that  Nellie  v/ants  any- 
thing but  "  strengthening  up,"  He  ar- 
rives at  the  surgery  at  all  sorts  of  unseemly 
hours  of  the  night  and  day  to  reiterate 
his  request.  He  has  the  dogged  persist- 
ence of  a  great  ignorance  and  a  great  love. 
If  there  can  be  any  pathos  in  connection 
with  a  beefsteak — which  is  manifestly  im- 
possible— James  puts  it  there. 

The  delirium  leaves  Nellie  one  twilight, 
and  the  father  fancies  as  he  watches  her 
that  she  knows  he  is  near.  He  sits  by 
her  all  through  the  sultry  night.      The 

140 


The  Soldier-Servant 

little  house  is  very  quiet  indeed,  the  vol- 
uble 'Liza  having  gone  to  sleep  down- 
stairs. Before  dawn  Nellie  stirs  a  little, 
and  smiles  as  if  her  dreams  were  happy. 
Her  poor  little  life  goes  out  quietly  with 
the  stars,  and  her  father  is  roused  from 
a  broken  sleep  by  the  chill  of  the  wasted 
hand  lying  in  his  own.  In  a  few  days 
'Liza  has  already  begun  to  derive  a  good 
deal  of  consolation  from  some  deeply 
woeful  mourning  and  the  celebrity  and 
glory  imparted  to  her  from  being  a  near 
relation  of  a  corpse.  She  enjoys  a  rel- 
ish in  the  shape  of  a  bloater,  and  a  few 
friends  to  her  tea,  with  a  good  deal  of 
zest  and  any  number  of  easy  tears, 
while  James  sits  alone  with  Bulbs  in 
front  of  him,  reading  it  with  a  dogged 
sense  of  duty,  and  comprehending  not 
a  word. 

James  cannot  derive  any  consolation 
from  his  friends — having  only  a  very  few, 
and  at  no  time,  even  the  happiest,  treat- 
ing them  to  confidence  and  conversation. 
Perhaps   his  grief  is  of   that  kind  which 

141 


The  Soldier-Servant 

words  would  not  at  all  relieve.  Perhaps, 
after  all,  it  is  much  like  the  trouble  of 
more  highly  cultivated  persons,  and  he 
fears  sympathy  as  one  fears  a  touch  upon 
an  open  wound. 

He  resumes  his  work,  his  master  having 
repented  of  his  hardness,  or  found  that 
James  is  necessary  to  the  place,  or  both. 
And  James,  having  been  at  all  times  a  very 
temperate  person,  puts  by  from  his  week's 
wages  a  modest  allowance  usually  de- 
voted to  beer.  He  makes  many  other, 
if  no  greater,  sacrifices  for  the  same  ob- 
ject. 'Liza  talks  of  putting  by  some- 
thing, too,  towards  Nellie's  memorial 
stone.  'Liza  says  they  must  do  some- 
thing 'andsome  by  the  child.  It  is  char- 
acteristic of  them  both  that  'Liza  only 
talks  and  James  only  does. 

James  is  deputed  to  choose  the  stone. 
There  are  tears  in  his  eyes,  perhaps, 
which  obscure  his  sense  of  the  beautiful — 
or  he  has  no  such  sense  at  all.  Only 
wants  Nellie — in  'Liza's  phrase — to  be 
done  by  'andsome.      Wants  to  show  her, 

142 


The  Soldier-Servant 

by  spending  a  great  deal  of  money  that 
he  can  very  ill  afford,  how  dear  she  is  to 
him,  and  how  faithfully  his  heart  keeps 
her  memory.  Perhaps  he  thinks — the 
uneducated  have  such  ideas — that  she 
looks  down  from  some  baby  heaven  and 
approves  an  erection  which  it  must  be 
confessed  is  unmitigatedly  hideous  and 
pagan.  'Liza  takes  a  great  deal  of  pride 
in  pointing  out  the  stone  to  her  friends, 
in  mentioning  its  price,  and  recalling  the 
expenses  of  the  funeral.  But  James  is 
pleased  only  because  Nellie  will  be  pleased 
too.  He  goes  often  to  contemplate  the 
grave  in  the  churchyard,  and  derives 
from  its  gloomy  hideousness  a  comfort 
and  easing  of  sorrow  which  he  does  not 
find  elsewhere.  Very  plebeian  and  uned- 
ucated? Yes;  but  it  maybe  that  in  its 
vast  heart  Providence  takes  account  of 
griefs  so  simple,  and  itself  provides  for 
them  these  simple  consolations. 

Years  after,  when  James  still  gardens 
grumpily,  and  despises  Miss  Laura's 
essays  in  horticulture  with  perfect  good- 
humor  and  impoliteness,  a  small  circum- 

143 


The  Soldier-Servant 

stance  reveals  that  Nellie  is  still  unfor- 
gotten. 

"  Drat  this  place  !  "  says  'Liza,  who  is 
still  voluble  and  emphatic,  and  she  votes 
that  they  retire  upon  their  savings  and 
end  their  days  fashionably  at  Ramsgate. 

James  does  not  give  any  reason  why 
this  plan  does  not  please  him.  Perhaps 
he  thinks  that  reason  is  wasted  upon  wo- 
men— particularly  upon  'Liza.  Perhaps 
his  contempt  of  words  and  his  habits  of 
silence  have  deepened  with  time.  And 
they  have  always  been  deep.  Or  perhaps 
he  has  no  reason  to  urge — only  a  feeling. 
And  any  one  who  thinks  that  James  would 
ever  urge  his  feelings  can  know  nothing 
at  all  about  him. 

But  when  'Liza  can  swear  it's  because 
he  won't  leave  our  Nellie,  who  has  been 
a  corpse  these  ten  years,  there  is  no  know- 
ing that  she  may  not  be  right. 


144 


The  Practical    Woman 


lO 


The  Practical  Woman 


"  II  n'ya  guere  de  femme  assez  habile  pour  connaitre 
tout  le  mal  qu'elle  fait." 

At  an  early  age  Nora  fixes  her  calm 
and  discerning  eye  on  a  wholly  eligible 
young  man.  The  fact  that  he  is  com- 
fortably off  and  has  excellent  prospects 
has,  of  course,  nothing  to  do  with  her  re- 
gard for  him.  Love  is,  we  know,  supe- 
rior to  these  things. 

But,  as  Nora  often  remarks.  Love  is 
not  superior  to  the  tradespeople,  who 
must  always  be  taken  into  consideration 
when  one  is  deciding  where  to  place  one's 
young  affections. 

There  is  no  silly  sentimentality  about 
Nora.  She  is  preeminently  a  girl  who 
will  make  an  excellent  wife.  On  the  very 
first  evening  she  is  engaged  she  produces 
a  large  note-book  and  a   foot-rule.       In 

147 


The  Practical  Woman 

the  note-book  she  makes  a  Hst  of  the 
utensils  which  will  be  required  for  her 
new  kitchen,  and  asks  Arthur  if  he  really 
thinks  a  cook  can  possibly  require  more 
than  six  saucepans. 

Arthur  says,  "  Don't  bother  about 
saucepans  yet  a  while,"  and  begins  to  be 
immensely  sentimental.  Arthur  is  sen- 
timental. There  is  no  doubt  about  it. 
Nora  raises  a  face  wholly  pretty  and  good- 
tempered,  and  gives  Arthur  a  little  peck 
on  the  cheek,  shakes  her  head  at  his  fool- 
ishness, with  an  engaging  smile,  and  re- 
turns to  the  saucepans.  Afterwards  she 
measures  carpets  with  the  foot-rule,  and 
is  just  a  trifle  vexed  with  Arthur  that  he 
cannot  remember  if  his  drawing-room  is 
12  feet  by  8  or  12  feet  by  10. 

It  is  delightful  to  see  a  girl  so  thor- 
oughly practical  and  sensible,  especially 
when  one  remembers  what  fools  most 
people  make  of  themselves  when  they  are 
engaged  to  be  married.  Nor  can  it  pos- 
sibly be  supposed  that  Nora  is  not  rather 
fond  of  Arthur.  It  is  one's  duty  to  care 
for  the  man  one  is  going  to  marry,  and 

14S 


The  Practical  Woman 

Nora's  sense  of  duty  is  immense.  Her 
feelings  are  always  regulated  by  prin- 
ciple ;  and  they  never  run  away  with  her 
as  Arthur's  do,  for  instance. 

"  I  cannot  say,"  says  Nora  to  a  girl 
friend,  with  that  delightful  candor  which 
is  part  of  her  attraction,  "  that  I  am  de- 
votedly in  love  with  Arthur.  In  fact,  I 
should  say  that  if  Mr.  Morton  had  pro- 
posed to  me,  as  I  expected  he  would  have 
done,  I  should  have  married  him  in  pref- 
erence. But  Arthur  is  very  good  and 
right-minded,  and  is  always  at  church  on 
Sunday,  which  is  more  than  one  can  say 
of  Mr.  Morton.  Therefore  I  am  sure 
everything  is  ordered  for  the  best." 

The  engagement  is  not  a  long  one,  but 
long  enough  for  Nora,  in  company  with 
the  note-book  and  Arthur,  to  choose  the 
furniture  in  a  particularly  competent, 
shrewd,  and  business-like  manner.  They 
meet  other  couples  doing  the  same  thing. 
These,  perhaps,  blinded  with  love,  may 
take  painted  deal  for  oak,  and  the  latest 
imitation  for  the  genuine  antique.  But 
not  so  Nora. 

149 


The  Practical  Woman 

Arthur  trots  behind  her,  and  when  he 
has  a  chance — and  he  very  seldom  has — 
murmurs  soft  nothings  in  her  ear.  Nora 
receives  them  with  admirable  good 
temper. 

"  But  because  we  are  in  love,"  she 
says,  with  a  very  pretty  smile,  "  there  is 
no  reason  why  we  should  be  cheated." 

Which,  indeed,  is  perfectly  true. 

Nora  is  a  very  pretty  bride.  Other 
girls  have  been  seen  on  the  auspicious 
day  flushed  with  excitement  or  pale  with 
nervousness,  or  even  with  noses  reddened 
from  weeping.  But  Nora  is  charmingly 
calm  and  collected. 

They  have  a  delightful  wedding  trip,  of 
course.  Where  is  the  person  who  has 
not  had  a  delightful  wedding  trip  ?  Then 
they  settle  down,  and  the  cook  is  comfort- 
ably established  with  her  six  saucepans. 
Nora  is  a  wife  for  whom  any  man  ought 
to  be  thankful.  She  feeds  Arthur  with 
great  judiciousness.  She  institutes  a 
daily  reading  of  the  Scriptures  aloud  for 
his  benefit. 

"  By  Jove,"   says   Arthur   weakly — he 

150 


The  Practical  Woman 

is  a  weak  person — "  can't  I  be  trusted  to 
read  them  to  myself  ?" 

Nora  replies,  with  her  usual  clear  good 
sense  and  a  highly  principled  face,  that  it 
is  a  great  deal  better  he  should  read  them 
with  her,  because  then  she  has  certainty 
to  go  upon,  and  not  trust.  Which  is 
eminently  more  satisfactory. 

She  manages  him  very  well.  She  is 
fond  of  him,  of  course,  but  does  not  allow 
him  to  be  maudlinly  sentimental. 

''Dear  Arthur,"  she  says,  with  her 
prettiest  smile,  "  of  course  I  like  you.  It 
is  my  duty.  But  I  don't  mean  to  say 
that  if  you  were  to  die  I  should  not  most 
likely  marry  again — that  is,  of  course, 
after  a  decent  interval." 

"  Thank  you  for  the  interval,"  says 
Arthur.  Perhaps  he  thinks  he  is  sarcas- 
tic. But  Nora  very  properly  takes  him 
quite  seriously,  and  says  that  if  there 
were  no  interval  people  would  talk. 

She  is  full  of  kindness  and  deeds  of 
mercy.  She  discovers  a  little  Mrs. 
Jones,  with  an  income  of  one  hundred 
pounds  per  annum  and  a  great  number  of 

151 


The  Practical  Woman 

children.  Nora  decides,  in  her  compe- 
tent and  business-Hke  way,  that  the  colo- 
nies are  the  place  for  Mrs.  Jones.  There- 
fore she  proceeds  to  arrange  for  the 
emigration,  and  makes  outfits  for  the  emi- 
grants. During  this  time  Arthur  hardly 
ever  sees  her.  He  would  be  a  selfish 
beast  if  he  complained.  But  he  is  a  self- 
ish beast,  and  he  does  complain. 

On  which  Nora  says,  "  Now,  dear,  how 
would  you  like  to  have  one  hundred  a 
year,  ten  children,  and  no  prospects  ? 
You  should  consider  other  people  a 
little." 

And  Arthur  is  duly  crushed. 

Mrs.  Jones  is  so  overcome  with  all  the 
kindnesses  she  receives  from  Nora  that, 
one  day,  being  an  overwrought  and  emo- 
tional person,  she  throws  her  arms  round 
her  benefactress's  neck  and  kisses  her, 
with  deplorably  weak  tears. 

Nora  dries  the  tears  carefully  from  her 
dress,  which  is  a  new  one — and  Nora  is 
always  economical — and  looks  at  Mrs. 
Jones  with  an  amused  little  smile — the 
best  thing  for  Mrs.   Jones,  undoubtedly, 

152 


The  Practical  Woman 

for  it  has  the  effect  of  chilling  her  emo- 
tions a  little  and  making  her  recover  her- 
self quickly. 

"  John,"  says  Mrs.  Jones  to  a  worn 
and  harassed  husband  that  evening-,  "  if 
Nora  were  not  without  a  heart  at  all  she 
would  be  the  kindest-hearted  person  in 
the  world." 

A  ridiculous  remark.  But  Mrs.  Jones 
is  a  ridiculous  little  person. 

Nora,  it  is  very  true,  has  a  better 
foundation  for  her  good  deeds  than  mere 
feeling  and  impulse.  She  is  a  mass  of 
Principle.  Some  weak  persons  are  loving 
and  sympathetic  because  they  feel  so.  A 
poor  reason,  indeed.  They  remove  suf- 
fering because  it  hurts  them  to  see  it; 
which  is  plainly  pure  selfishness.  But 
Nora  has  never  done  a  good  deed — and 
her  good  deeds  are  many — which  was  not 
prompted  solely  by  duty. 

"  Dash  your  duty  !  "  Arthur  has  once 
said.  "  Dash  your  duty  !  If  that's  the 
only  reason  you  care  about  me  I'd  rather 
you  didn't  do  it  at  all." 

Nora  very  properly  first  reprimands 
153 


The  Practical  Woman 

Arthur  for  his  strong  language — it  is  such 
bad  taste — and  then  says  she  is  sure  he 
would  not  be  so  cross  and  discontented 
without  some  reason,  and  is  afraid  it  must 
be  his  liver.  She  doctors  him,  therefore, 
indefatigably  for  that  organ — Eno's  fruit 
salt  and  Beecham's  pills. 

But  his  liver  never  seems  to  be  com- 
pletely cured. 

One  day  an  infant  appears  upon  the 
scene.  It  is  an  interruption.  Any  one  who 
has  work — charitable  work,  too — upon 
their  hands,  as  Nora  has,  would  feel  the 
same  thing.  The  secretaryship  of  the 
Amalgamated  Shop  Girls,  a  district  of 
costermongers,  a  cutting-out  class,  and 
a  golf  club — all  have  to  go  to  the  wall  for  it. 

It  is  not  even  a  pretty  infant.  It  is 
purple  in  color  ;  and  its  nose  turns  up  in 
the  air  and  is  red  at  the  tip.  It  is  a  chilly 
and  disconsolate-looking  baby,  in  fact. 
And  yet,  though  Nora  cannot  pretend  to 
find  it  interesting,  as  some  weak-minded 
mammas  have  been  known  to  find  equally 
dull  specimens,  it  is  beautifully  brought 
up — on  Principle,  and  on  a  System. 

154 


The  Practical  Woman 

The  System  involves  bracing  and  much 
open  air;  fogs  and  east  winds  useful  for 
their  hardening  properties.  Crying  not 
allowed  by  the  Principle.  The  house  not 
turned  topsy-turvy  because  of  the  infant's 
presence  therein.  From  the  first  moment 
of  its  existence  it  is  brought  up  on  a  pre- 
arranged plan — a  plan  absolutely  infallible, 
and  not  admitting  of  modification. 

Nora  may  not — indeed,  does  not — crow 
and  make  a  fool  of  herself  over  the  baby, 
as  many  mothers  do.  But  it  has  the  best 
of  everything — hygienic  clothing,  and  a 
nurse  who  does  not  dare  to  rebel  (openly 
at  least)  against  the  System. 

When  Nora  returns  to  her  good  works 
she  by  no  means,  as  so  many  might,  neg- 
lects the  baby  for  them.  The  baby  has 
been  Sent.  It  is  her  duty.  She  visits 
the  nursery,  therefore,  several  times  a  day 
between  other  engagements,  and  sees 
that  the  System  is  carried  out.  She 
moves  the  cradle  with  the  toe  of  her  boot, 
and  looks  at  the  infant  proudly,  of  course, 
but  perhaps  a  trifle  critically.  She  feels 
a  slight  and  very  natural  annoyance  that 

155 


The  Practical  Woman 

it  is  plainer  than  other  person's  babies, 
and  then  hastens  off,  full  of  duty,  to  the 
cutting-out  class. 

Arthur  is  weak  over  that  infant;  for  a 
man,  deplorably  weak.  Once,  indeed, 
Nora  finds  him  kneeling  by  the  cradle 
with  one  of  the  baby's  ridiculous  hands 
grasping  his  finger.  He  really  looks  most 
idiotic.  When  Nora  sees  him  she  looks 
in  his  face  and  laughs;  not  maliciously, 
or  as  if  she  were  displeased — only  a  laugh 
of  amusement.  But  it  causes  him  to  drop 
the  ridiculous  hand  and  feel  as  if  he  had 
made  a  fool  of  himself;  which  shows  how 
a  little  good-humored  ridicule  may  cure  a 
man  of  his  worst  failings. 

One  night  the  infant  is  taken  suddenly 
ill.  It  has,  indeed,  been  systematized  the 
day  before  in  a  northeast  gale,  and,  being 
a  misconstructed  infant,  instead  of  bene- 
fiting by  a  regime,  is  dyii^g  of  it. 

Nora  is  admirably  calm  and  collected. 
While   another  mother — Mrs,   Jones,  for 

156 


The  Practical  Woman 

instance — would  be  agitated  into  putting 
the  baby  into  an  ipecacuanha  bath  and 
pouring  hot  water  down  its  throat,  with 
a  delightful  composure  and  common  sense 
Nora  is  reading  a  medical  book  to  see 
what  ought  to  be  done  under  the  circum- 
stances. 

"  Confound  that  book!"  says  Arthur, 
who  has  come  very  interferingly  into  the 
nursery  in  an  exceedingly  impromptu 
costume.  "  It  is  too  late  to  begin  learn- 
ing now  what  you  ought  to  do.  I  should 
have  thought  instinct  would  have  taught 
you  something  of  the  way  to  manage  it." 

"  I  have  never  heard,"  says  Nora,  with 
a  perfectly  good-tempered  smile,  "  that 
instinct  instructs  any  one  in  the  science  of 
medicine;  but  it  is  certainly  to  be  wished 
that  it  did." 

The  baby  lies  on  her  lap,  and  they  wait 
thus  for  the  doctor.  The  nurse  stands 
by  sobbing.  Sobs  are  so  useful.  But 
the  nurse  is  plebeian  and  emotional. 
Arthur  watches  the  child  with  a  face  sud- 
denly grown  haggard.  He  is  not  ple- 
beian ;  but  he  is  emotional,  it  seems. 

157 


The  Practical  Woman 

Before  morning  the  frail  life  goes  out 
with  a  sigh,  and  the  plebeian  nurse  is  car- 
ried away  in  hysterics. 

The  parents  leave  the  nursery  with  the 
doctor. 

"  What  was  the  cause  of  death  ? "  asks 
Arthur  in  an  odd  voice. 

"  The  System,"  answers  the  doctor. 
He  looks  at  Nora.  He  does  not  spare 
her.  He  need  not.  If  there  is  a  shadow 
on  her  pretty  face  it  is  a  very  faint  one. 

"  It  answers  with  most  babies,"  she 
replies. 

And  the  doctor  says,  "  If  you  have  an- 
other child,  madam,  try  a  little  more  love 
and  a  little  less  System.  Believe  me,  that 
will  answer  better." 

Then  he  leaves  them  alone. 

For  a  while  they  stand  in  silence. 

"  We  must  try,"  says  Nora,  laying  a 
hand  on  Arthur's  shoulder,  "to  be  re- 
signed. Of  course,  it  is  very  sad,  but  it 
is  Sent." 

Arthur  is  usually  a  weak  man,  Heaven 
knows.  But  he  turns  upon  her  now,  his 
eyes  burning  with  some  strong  passion. 

15S 


The  Practical  WomaH 

"  Confound  you  !  "  he  says;  "  confound 
your  systems,  and  your  resignation,  and 
your  rehgion — confound  them  all." 

The  quarrel,  if  quarrel  it  can  be  called, 
is  made  up,  of  course.  Quarrels  are  so 
wrong.  And  Arthur  apologizes  for  swear- 
ing. Swearing  is  so  dreadful.  And  soon 
there  is  another  baby,  who  really  does  just 
as  well  as  the  first.  And  Nora  is  as 
bright  and  good-tempered  and  sensible 
as  ever;  and  Arthur  is  perfectly  satisfied, 
of  course,  except  when  his  liver  is  wrong; 
and  that,  as  every  one  knows,  makes  any 
one  take  a  discontented  view  of  life  and 
think  things  are  not  as  satisfactory  as 
they  might  be. 


159 


The  Squire 


II 


The   Squire 


"  II  n'y  a  pour  rhomme  qu'un   vrai  malheur,  c'est 
d'avoir  quelque  chose  a  se  reprocher." 

He  is  fine,  fresh-colored,  upright,  and 
over  seventy  years  old.  The  old  gaffers 
in  the  village  remember  him  in  his  youth 
as  the  straightest  rider  in  the  county. 
"  Our  squire  was  a  game  'un,"  says  one 
of  them,  with  a  twinkle  in  his  ancient  eye. 
He  is,  for  that  matter,  game  still.  He 
drives  even  now  twenty  miles  to  the 
Derby,  in  a  sporting  coat  with  a  rose  in 
his  button-hole  and  a  fine  expectation  of 
enjoyment  on  his  brave  old  face.  There 
is  still  about  him  a  certain  freshness,  keen- 
ness, and  vigor  very  pleasant  to  see.  He 
is  yet  as  good  a  judge  of  a  horse  as  any 
man  in  the  neighborhood.  He  has  or- 
ganized and  presides  over  the  village 
cricket  team,  and  is  proud  that  his  eleven 

163 


The  Squire 

should  be  the  terror  of  other  persons' 
elevens  for  miles  round. 

The  squire  lives  in  a  great  stone  house, 
which  has  been  in  his  family  for  many 
generations.  His  estate  and  his  tenants 
are  admirably  looked  after.  He  walks 
over  his  property,  with  a  fine  elastic 
tread  that  is  almost  youthful,  every  day 
except  Sundays.  His  people  are  a  little 
afraid  and  infinitely  fond  of  him.  To  his 
servants  he  is  perfectly  just,  strict,  and 
kind.  There  is  not  one  of  them  Avho 
would  dare  to  neglect  his  duty,  nor  one 
who  is  not  certain  of  finding  in  his  master 
a  great  justice  and  liberality. 

His  charity  is  as  little  abused,  perhaps, 
as  any  man's.  Even  the  people  to  whom 
he  gives  speak  well  of  him.  The  little 
village  girls,  after  a  fine  simple  old  cus- 
tom, drop  him  the  profoundest  of  cour- 
tesies. He  knows  nearly  every  one  of 
them  by  name — has  known  by  name  their 
parents  and  grandparents  before  them. 
He  walks  regularly  with  his  family,  rather 
slowly  and  with  a  good  deal  of  dignity, 
to  church  every  Sunday  morning.      The 

164 


The  Squire 

gaffers,  remembering  his  wild  youth,  wink 
at  each  other  sometimes  as  he  passes 
thus.  But,  indeed,  even  his  wildness  has 
been  characterized  by  a  blameless  honor 
and  generosity,  and  there  is  no  man  to- 
day who  can  remember  against  him  any- 
thing unworthy  of  an  upright  and  honest 
gentleman. 

The  Squire  is  sprucely  dressed  upon  all 
occasions.  On  Sundays  particularly  he 
recalls  to  one's  mind  the  dandyism  of  his 
youth.  He  always  has  a  flower  in  his 
coat,  and  his  gray  felt  hat  is  perfectly 
trim  and  well  brushed.  Upon  Sunday, 
too,  he  wears  gloves,  and  has  a  fine  solemn 
air  with  him,  which  of  itself  almost  makes 
one  feel  Sabbatical. 

He  reads  the  lessons  in  church  with 
perfect  conviction  and  simplicity.  "  He 
do  do  it  beautiful  !  "  says  Granny,  Vv^ho  is 
deaf,  and  has  not  heard  a  word.  But  his 
reverend  old  face  and  fine  devout  air  im- 
press her,  perhaps,  as  they  impress  many 
other  simple  people.  The  Squire  says  his 
prayers  in  a  sitting  posture,  with  one  hand 
hiding  his  face.      One  can  distinguish  his 

165 


The  Squire 

deep  "Amen"  among  the  rustic  responses. 
He  does  not  turn  to  the  east  at  the  creed 
to  gratify  the  prejudices  of  an  enlightened 
youthful  vicar.  He  is  quite  conservative 
and  narrow-minded.  His  feelings  are  a 
great  deal  hurt  and  wounded  when  sing- 
ing is  introduced  where  saying  has  been 
the  fashion  ever  since  he  can  remember. 
His  religion,  indeed,  is  so  perfectly  simple 
and  faithful  and  behind  the  times  that  it 
seems  very  little  different  from  the  child- 
ish religion  he  learned — Heaven  knows 
how  many  long  years  ago — at  his  mother's 
knee.  Perhaps  it  is  not  different  at  all, 
and  in  this  brave  old  heart  the  simple, 
tender  little  ideas  of  a  simple  little  mother 
still  live  and  bear  fruit  a  hundredfold. 

The  Squire  is,  as  he  should  be,  the  hot- 
test of  Tories.  The  little  village  consti- 
tutes an  absurd  little  branch  of  the  Prim- 
rose League.  The  Squire  gives  the 
Primrose  League  two  suppers  and  a  series 
of  village  entertainments  every  year  to 
keep  up  its  political'  energy.  He  ad- 
dresses it  with  a  great  deal  of  vigorous 
simplicity,  which  suits  it  admirably.  Per- 
iod 


The  Squire 

haps  his  arguments  are  not  very  good. 
It  is  not  an  argument  at  all,  very  likely, 
to  say  that  Mr.  Gladstone  is  a  double- 
dyed  villain.  But  in  this  case  the  state- 
ment does  as  well  or  a  great  deal  better 
than  an  argument.  The  first  article  in 
the  village  political  creed  is  to  believe 
what  the  Squire  says.  And  indeed,  in 
many  things,  the  village  might  do  worse. 
After  the  politics  the  Squire's  daugh- 
ters, who  are  plain,  kindly,  and  middle- 
aged,  play  duets,  the  Vicar's  wife  sings 
one  of  her  three  little  songs,  and  the 
Squire  reads  an  extract  out  of  Dickens. 
The  Squire  is  not  a  literary  man  in  a  gen- 
eral way.  He  believes  in  the  Bible  and 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  and  sometimes  in  the 
mellow,  lamp-lit  evenings  he  takes  his 
Byron  and  re-reads  some  of  those  wild 
love  lyrics  which  in  his  youth,  at  a  cer- 
tain romantic  time,  he  very  likely  knew 
by  heart.  He  looks  up  from  the  book 
sometimes,  with  very  kindly  old  eyes,  at 
Madame  sitting  opposite  to  him.  Mad- 
ame is  still  upright,  and  handsome  in 
spite  of  gray  hairs  and   wrinkles.      The 

167 


The  Squire 

world  finds  her,  indeed,  a  httle  too  quiet 
and  dignified  for  its  liking. 

And  the  Squire  says,  with  a  smile  half 
tender,  half  humorous,  "  Do  you  remem- 
ber this,  Mary  ?  "  and  reads  her  a  line  or 
two  in  some  such  voice  as  he  reads  the 
Song  of  Solomon  in  church. 

And  the  faintest  delicate  color  starts  in 
Madame's  old  cheeks,  and  there  is  a  little 
soft  droop  about  her  lips,  and  she  remem- 
bers it — very  well  indeed. 

The  Squire  is  quite  devoted  to  Mad- 
ame. Perhaps  to  him  she  is  still  bright- 
eyed  and  one-and-twenty.  Or  perhaps 
he  thinks  that  seventy-two  is  the  most 
charming  and  becoming  age  in  the  world. 
The  old  couple  are  still  quite  enterprising. 
Now  the  children  are  well  advanced  in 
middle  life  Madame  feels  she  may  safely 
leave  them — for  a  few  weeks,  that  is — to 
themselves.  So  every  autumn  the  old 
pair  take  a  trip  abroad.  The  Squire's  at- 
titude towards  Madame  is  quite  chivalrous 
and  protecting  and  considerate.  He  stud- 
ies Murray  and  Baedecker  through  his 
gold-rimmed  spectacles,  and  tells  Madame, 

i68 


The  Squire 

who  is  horribly  submissive  and  old-fash- 
ioned, where  it  will  be  best  for  them  to 
go  next.  The  Squire  speaks  languages 
in  the  perfectly  precise  and  grammatical 
manner  in  which  he  learned  them  in  his 
youth,  and  which  considerably  astonishes 
the  natives.  Madame  does  a  great  deal 
of  standing-by  and  following  her  husband. 
She  was  young  when  such  an  attitude 
was  common  to  all  women.  She  is  not 
learned.  She  is  not  at  all  ambitious.  She 
is  quite  loving  and  simple.  She  knows 
very  well  how  to  manage  a  house.  She 
is  very  proud  of  her  table  linen  and  her 
china.  She  used  to  be  fearfully  and  won- 
derfully learned  with  her  babies.  She  is 
ever  so  little  shy  and  chilling  in  her  inter- 
course with  strangers,  and  is  devoted  to 
her  husband  with  all  the  depth  and 
strength  of  her  faithful  heart. 

The  Squire  is  preeminently  the  master 
in  his  own  house.  To  Madame  he  is 
master  also,  but  a  master  how  infinitely 
kind,  loving,  just,  and  tender  only  Mad- 
ame knows.  He  reads  Prayers — a  solemn 
chapter  out  of  the  Bible  and  a  long  sup- 

169 


The  Squire 

plication  compiled  by  a  prosy  old  bishop 
— at  eight  o'clock  every  morning.  Mad- 
ame kneels  by  his  side,  with  gray  bent 
head  and  devout,  folded  hands.  After 
breakfast  the  Squire  leaves  her  to  her 
household  duties  and  takes  a  ride.  His 
costume  is  admirably  correct  and  youth- 
ful. His  fine  fresh-colored  old  face  glows 
with  the  exercise.  He  is  still  "  game" 
enough  to  occasionally  drive  four-in-hand. 
To  be  complimented  as  the  best  whip  in 
the  county  causes  his  honest,  dignified 
old  face  to  redden  pleasantly  with  pride. 
In  the  afternoons  he  watches  the  cricket 
or  his  daughters  playing  tennis.  "  A  fine 
game,"  he  says.  "  A  very  fine  game."  He 
thinks  all  games  fine,  almost,  and  those 
in  which  horseflesh  can  be  introduced  the 
finest  of  all.  He  would  play  tennis  him- 
self only  Madame  is  anxious  about  his 
heart,  and  when  he  handles  a  racquet 
comes  into  the  garden  with  a  face  so  ap- 
pealing and  distressed  as  to  cause  him  to 
desist  immediately.  • 

But  after  all  it  is  Madame  herself  who 
first  goes  the  way  of  all  flesh.     She  dies 

170 


The  Squire 

very  quietly  indeed.  The  Squire  is  by 
her  bedside,  and  holds  her  feeble  fingers 
to  the  last  in  his  strong  old  hand. 

"  We  have  been  very  happy,  my  dear," 
says  the  wife. 

"  Ay,  ay,  Mary.  God  has  been  very 
good,"  answers  the  Squire  in  his  simple 
fashion.  The  daughters,  who  have  known 
the  devotion  which  the  old  couple  have 
borne  to  each  other,  are  surprised  at  their 
father's  steady  courage  and  composure 
when  the  end  comes. 

"  You  must  take  comfort,"  says  the 
Vicar. 

"  I  have  taken  it,"  says  the  Squire. 
"  I  am  not  far  from  eighty  years  old.  I 
shall  not  be  long  without  her." 

At  the  funeral  in  the  little  churchyard, 
surrounded  by  his  children  and  by  the 
poor  people  who  have  received  a  thou- 
sand tender  charities  from  the  dead  wo- 
man, the  Squire's  fine  old  face  stands  out 
with  a  great  courage  and  serenity  against 
the  wintry  sky. 

Afterwards,  when  he  has  reached  home, 
he  goes   to   the    stable    and    gives    some 

171 


The  Squire 

orders  about  Madame's  pony.  "  Don't 
work  her  any  more,"  he  says  to  the 
groom.  "  Let  Nellie  enjoy  herself.  Her 
mistress  would  have  wished  it."  And 
Nellie  answers  him  with  a  neigh,  and 
rubs  her  old  nose  against  his  black  coat. 
When  he  gets  back  to  his  library  he  writes 
in  a  firm  old  hand  to  beg  that  the  village 
football  match  may  not  be  postponed  on 
account  of  "  my  great  loss." 

And  for  the  first  time  the  full  extent 
of  that  loss  comes  upon  him. 

In  the  short  winter  twilight  his  eldest 
daughter,  who  is  a  plain,  homely  little 
woman,  with  a  great  loving  heart,  finds 
him  sitting,  with  bent  head  and  dreary 
eyes,  looking  into  a  lifeless  fire. 

"  Will  3'^ou  come  to  tea,  father  ?"  she 
says  softly.     **  We  are  waiting  for  you." 

"  Presently,  presently,"  he  answers  in 
an  old  voice. 

Above  him  is  a  picture  of  Madame  at 
three-and-twenty  years  old,  sweet,  bright, 
and  blushing.  He  remembers  her  to- 
night just  as  she  was  then.  He  recalls 
the  beautiful,    rapt   maternity  upon    her 

172 


The  Squire 

face  as  she  bent  over  the  first  of  their 
children.  The  child  died  a  baby.  It 
comforts  the  Squire's  brave,  simple  old 
heart  to  think  that  the  two  are  together 
to-night.  He  goes  back  in  fancy,  no 
doubt,  as  he  sits  in  the  darkening  room 
beneath  her  picture,  to  a  thousand  trivial 
incidents  of  their  quiet  married  life. 
They  have  been  very  happy.  There  have 
been  troubles,  indeed,  but  they  have 
shared  them.  There  has  been  the  poor 
old  human  need  for  forbearance.  He 
thinks  to-night  that  such  a  need  made 
them  care  for  each  other  not  less,  but 
more.  If  his  memories  are  sad,  as  at 
such  a  time  they  must  needs  be,  they  are 
not  bitter  at  all.  He  has  been  blessed, 
is  still  blessed,  above  other  men.  When 
he  joins  his  daughters,  a  sad  little  party 
in  the  lamp-lit  drawing-room,  there  is  a 
courage  and  even  a  certain  hope  and 
cheerfulness  upon  his  rugged  face. 

Such  a  courage  and  cheerfuless  mark 
all  his  life  afterward.  He  shoots  pheas- 
ants in  the  autumn  in  the  home  coverts 
as   he   used   to  do,  and  appears  to  enjoy 

173 


/ 


The   Squire 

the  sport  as  he  has  always  enjoyed  it.  He 
takes  the  same  interest  in  the  horses  and 
dogs  and  the  farming.  The  estate  is  as 
carefully  looked  after  as  ever.  "  But  he 
thinks  on  her,"  says  Granny.  "  Rethinks 
on  her  all  the  time."  Granny  is  right, 
perhaps,  though  she  has  only  the  wisdom 
of  the  simple.  The  Squire  is  very  partic- 
ular that  none  of  Madame's  charities 
should  be  neglected.  He  himself  audits 
the  modest  accounts  of  her  Clothing  Club. 
He  desires  that  one  of  his  daughters  shall 
distribute,  in  her  place,  simple  remedies 
for  the  old  people's  aches  and  pains.  He 
likes  still  that  the  house  shall  be  cheerful, 
and  to  see  happy  faces  about  him.  He 
does  not  very  often  talk  of  the  dead  wife. 
It  is  his  habit,  instead,  to  do  as  she  would 
wish.  His  children  are  startled  sometimes 
to  see  how  faithfully  her  smallest  desires 
are  remembered  and  obeyed.  By  a  tacit 
consent  her  place  by  the  Squire's  side  in 
church  is  always  left  vacant.  But,  except 
this,  his  fashion  of  mourning  her  is  almost 
wholly  practical.  He  calls  in  sometimes 
in   the   afternoon   to  chat  with  a  certain 

174 


The  Squire 

small  farmer  whom  Madame,  in  her  fine 
goodness  and  innocence,  thought  she  was 
going  to  reclaim  from  habits  of  inebria- 
tion. He  takes  out  her  great  retriever 
every  day  for  a  long  walk,  Madame  hav- 
ing a  theory  that  Don's  internal  arrange- 
ments required  an  abnormal  amount  of 
exercise. 

One  of  his  daughters  tells  the  story 
long  after,  smiling,  and  with  tender  tears 
in  her  eyes,  how  he  even  wears  the  warm- 
est and  scrubbiest  of  underclothing  dur- 
ing the  winter,  in  accordance  with  one  of 
the  dead  Madame's  fond  and  anxious 
wishes. 

There  are  a  thousand  ways  in  which 
the  brave  old  man  is  faithful  to  her  mem- 
ory. With  his  simple  faith  in  the  Unseen, 
he  fancies  that  she  looks  down  from  some 
happy  Heaven,  and  is  glad,  as  she  would 
have  been  on  earth,  to  see  him  well, 
active,  and,  so  far  as  may  be,  contented. 

He  is  so  to  the  end.     To  the  end  the 
brave  old  face  has  a  cheery  look  for  every 
man.       To    the   end   he  is  a  fine,  honest, 
sportsmanlike,  God-fearing  country  gen- 
us 


The  Squire 

tleman.  To  the  end  he  has  a  mind  fresh, 
keen,  active,  a  great  love  for  his  dogs 
and  his  horses,  a  great  generosity,  a  great 
manHness.  To  the  end  he  has  a  heart 
full  of  kindly  and  noble  thoughts — with 
one  most  faithful  and  abiding  memory. 

And  in  that  Place  whither  his  works 
shall  follow  him  he  joins  Madame  at  last. 


176 


The  Beauty 


12 


The  Beauty 


"  La  beaute   trompe  encore  plus  la  personne  qui  la 
possede  que  ceux  qui  en  sont  eblouis." 

Lena  is  seven-and-thirty  years  old. 
She  is  the  best-dressed  woman  in  Lon- 
don. "  And  the  best-looking,"  she  adds 
judicially  and  with  the  candor  for  which 
she  is  distinguished.  She  has  a  house  in 
Park  Lane.  She  has  a  villa  at  Florence 
of  which  she  is  immensely  fond — when 
she  is  in  England ;  and  a  great  estate  in 
the  Midlands  which  she  always  hates. 
She  is  of  the  world,  worldly.  She  is  so 
shallow  and  brilliant  that  one  feels  she 
ought  to  make  a  great  name.  She  knows 
something  about  everything.  She  reads 
before  she  comes  down  in  the  morning 
during  the  prolonged  rest  she  always 
takes  for  the  benefit  of  her  perfect  com- 
plexion.    She  reads  theology  when  theol- 

179 


The  Beauty 

ogy  is  the  fashion.  She  is  a  Buddhist 
one  week  and  a  Mahatma  the  next.  An 
Agnostic  pretty  frequently.  Agnosticism 
is  so  convenient.  She  talks  over  her  be- 
liefs with  her  admirers.  There  is  a  point 
and  audacity  about  her  statements  which 
make  them  infinitely  more  telling  than  if 
they  were  the  soundest  of  arguments. 
No  one  argues  with  her,  however.  Her 
beauty,  her  perfect  poses,  her  wit,  her 
brilliancy,  her  fine  sense  of  humor,  her 
complete  vanity  and  self-satisfaction  make 
argument  in  some  sense  impossible.  The 
laugh  is  always  with  her.  To  put  her  in 
the  wrong  is  quite  out  of  the  question. 
"  She  is  so  confoundedly  clever,  you 
know,"  some  one  says  of  her.  That  is  it. 
She  is  so  confoundedly  clever. 

Her  beauty  is  perfectly  preserved.  An 
excellent  digestion  and  a  heart  and  con- 
science which  have  given  her  no  sort  of 
trouble  have  contributed  to  this  desirable 
result.  "  I  shall  be  thirty-eight  next 
birthday,"  she  is  in  the  habit  of  saying 
with  the  most  delightful  candor.  "  And 
I  should  be  constantly  mistaken  for  my 

1 80 


The  Beauty 

own  daughter  if  I  were  not  so  very  much 
better  looking."  Her  vanity  is  as  trans- 
parent as  that  of  a  child  admiring  itself  in 
a  new  frock  in  a  looking-glass.  It  is,  as  it 
were,  the  weak  point  in  a  character  that  is 
otherwise  strong.  Lena  will  lap  up  greed- 
ily the  most  fulsome  of  compliments. 
There  is  no  flattery  too  blunt  for  her  ear. 
Her  pride  and  her  cleverness  cringe  to  it. 
Her  worship  of  her  own  beauty  would  be 
ridiculous  if  it  did  not  strike  a  note  that 
reverberates  in  tragedy.  To  be  lovely 
and  admired  has  been  the  whole  aim  of 
her  life.  She  has  sacrificed  her  soul  to  it 
and  achieved  it. 

Lena  was  married  at  nineteen.  "  I 
was  the  handsomest  girl  in  London,"  she 
,  says  to  her  husband,  looking  at  him  with 
perfect  scorn  and  good-humor  down  a 
table  glittering  with  glass  and  silver.  "  I 
might  have  married  anybody.  And  I 
married  you." 

Her  husband  does  not  answer.  He 
seldom  replies  to  Lena's  innuendoes.  He 
has  a  habit  of  sitting  with  his  hands 
crossed  behind  his  chair  and  his  grey  head 

iSi 


The  Beauty 

a  little  bent.  He  is  a  fool,  of  course. 
What  could  he  have  been  but  a  fool  to 
think  that  Lena,  brilliant  and  nineteen, 
could  be  marrying  him  for  anything  ex- 
cept his  money  ?  What  can  he  be  now 
but  a  fool  to  go  on  worshipping  this  wo- 
man who  insults  him  a  dozen  times  a  day 
with  her  scornful  good  humor  and  her 
cruel  wit  ?  The  world — the  world  always 
knows — says  he  only  has  himself  to  blame 
for  her  treatment  of  him.  The  world 
scorns  scarcely  less  than  she  does  herself 
his  slow  patience  and  long-suffering,  his 
persistent  kindness  and  forbearance.  "  My 
husband  has  no  brains  to  speak  of,  you 
know,"  says  Lena  conversationally.  Her 
husband  can  hear  the  remark  from  the 
other  end  of  the  table.  "  He  wrote  a 
prize  essay  at  Oxford,"  she  continues, 
enjoying  herself  very  much.  "  That 
speaks  for  itself."  Lena  is  wearing  dia- 
monds which  this  fool  gave  her  a  week 
ago.  Her  bad  taste  is  sometimes  so  ex- 
ecrable that  one  wonders  even  society 
applauds  her.  "  It's  a  dreadful  shame," 
people  say,  and  accept  her  invitations  to 

182 


The  Beauty 

dinner  next  month  with  perfect  pleasure. 
But  there  is  indeed  something  about  Lena 
which  leads  the  world,  as  well  as  her  hus- 
band, to  forgive  her.  It  may  be  her  wit, 
or  her  beauty,  or  her  manner  which  makes 
some  women  and  all  men  lose  sight  of, 
or  care  nothing  for,  the  nature  which 
they  cover.  Or  it  may  be  that  even  Lena 
is  not  so  bad  as  she  represents  herself. 

There  is  good  in  her.  There  is  a  cer- 
tain impulse  and  a  generosity  which 
would  be  very  good  if  they  were  not  so 
exceedingly  brief.  There  are  days  and 
moments  when  Lena  is  quite  pleasant  and 
civil  to  the  man  who  has  married  her,  and 
given  her  great  wealth,  great  faithfulness, 
great  affection.  The  day  he  brings  her 
home  the  diamonds  she  is  surprised  into 
pleasure  and  gratitude.  "  You  can  kiss 
me  if  you  like,"  she  says.  And  he  is 
fool  enough  to  touch  her  cheek  reverently 
with  his  lips.  She  wears  the  diamonds 
all  day  for  nearly  a  week.  Her  pleasure 
over  them  is  like  the  pleasure  of  a  child. 
She  tries  them  first  in  this  position  and 
then  in  that.      She  looks  at  herself  in  all 

183 


The  Beauty 

the  mirrors  in  the  drawing-room.  They 
dine  alone  in  the  evening,  and  she  is 
wholly  gracious,  and  brilliant,  and  good- 
humored.  She  has  put  on  her  very  finest 
dress.  She  has  made  the  maid  do  her 
hair  a  hundred  times.  "  Diamonds  suit 
me  exactly,"  she  says;  "  and  there  isn't 
one  woman  in  ten  thousand  who  ought 
ever  to  put  them  on."  Her  beauty  is  so 
rich  and  perfect  one  cannot  believe  she  is 
nearly  forty  years  old.  When  she  is 
good-humored,  as  she  is  to-night,  she 
looks  younger  than  ever.  Her  dress  is 
inimitably  chosen  and  suitable.  She 
affects  none  of  the  airs  of  a  very  young 
woman.  She  is  too  confoundedly  clever, 
you  know,  for  that. 

But  the  next  day  she  is  less  gracious; 
and  in  a  week  is  herself  again. 

Lena  has  a  few  occasional  plain  lady 
friends  whom  she  loves  passionately  for  a 
month  and  loathes  for  the  rest  of  her  life. 
She  has  admirers.  Every  one  admires  her. 
She  has  so  little  heart  that  her  only  dan- 
ger from  their  society  lies  in  her  most 
gullible  vanity, 

184 


The  Beauty 

It  is  in  society  that  she  shines  most. 
She  is  incomparably  brilliant  and  amus- 
ing. She  will  question  the  theology  of  an 
archbishop  with  the  easiest  wit  and  au- 
dacity across  a  great  dinner-table  of  per- 
sons who  pause  in  their  talk  to  listen  to 
and  look  at  her.  She  is  the  central  figure 
everywhere  she  goes.  Her  candor  and 
frankness  are  inimitable.  Her  vanity  is 
of  its  kind  perfect,  and  she  is  always  com- 
fortably assured  that  every  man  in  the 
room  is  in  love  with  her. 

Then  Sir  George  falls  ill.  The  illness 
is  alarming;  it  even  alarms  Lena.  In  the 
very  middle  of  the  season  she  goes  down 
to  the  Midlands  to  nurse  her  husband. 
She  puts  on  a  very  becoming  cap  and  a 
delightful  apron.  She  is  for  a  time  quite 
attentive  and  good-natured.  She  cheers 
the  patient  with  the  most  deliciously  scan- 
dalous and  piquant  stories  which  she  has 
heard  in  town.  The  sick  man  always  lies 
so  that  he  can  see  her.  She  has  done  her 
best  to  break  his  heart,  and  he  loves  her 
still.  The  touch  of  her  hand  raises  in  him 
now  a  thousand  tender  emotions.     She  is 

185 


The  Beauty 

still  the  one  woman  in  the  v/orld  for  him. 
And  she  leaves  him.  The  deadly  dulness 
of  the  place  and  the  monotony  and  de- 
pression of  a  sick-room  soon  get  intoler- 
able. She  has  always  been  quite  selfish. 
Admiration  is  the  breath  of  her  life.  And 
who  is  there  to  admire  one  here  ?  She 
goes  back  to  town,  and  a  telegram  in- 
forms her  of  his  death. 

She  laments  him  and  curses  herself  pas- 
sionately for  a  few  days.  But  there  is  the 
estate  to  see  about,  and  one's  black,  and 
all  sorts  of  things.  It  is  a  relief  to  her — 
it  would  be  to  any  woman  so  placed — that 
a  modern  widow  is  not  required  to  make 
herself  wholly  frightful.  "  I  am  not  sure 
that  black  is  not  more  becoming  to  me 
than  anything  else,"  she  says.  The  fact 
affords  her  a  great  deal  of  consolation. 

She  soon  resumes  her  usual  mode  of 
life.  She  is  more  admired  than  ever. 
She  is  a  very  rich  widow  indeed.  Her 
style  deteriorates,  perhaps.  But  that 
does  not  matter.  Her  admirers  are  not 
too  particular. 

And  then  she  falls  ill  herself.     It  is  not 

1 86 


The  Beauty 

a  common  illness;  it  does  not  affect  her 
brain  or  incapacitate  her  body;  it  only 
destroys  her  beauty.  She  goes  to  the 
best  physicians  in  London  and  abroad. 
She  tries  quackery.  She  spares  herself 
no  trouble  or  money.  While  she  is  going 
through  treatment  she  shuts  herself  up 
in  the  great  house  in  the  Midlands.  For 
a  while  she  almost  despairs.  She  reads  a 
great  many  French  novels,  and  tries  des- 
ultorily, and  with  little  of  her  former 
splendid  vigor  and  brilliancy,  a  new  relig- 
ion. And  she  hears  of  a  doctor,  a  great 
specialist  for  diseases  of  the  skin,  whom 
she  has  not  yet  seen.  She  flings  aside  the 
new  religion  and  puts  herself  under  his 
treatment.  It  is  irksome  always  and 
sometimes  painful;  but  she  carries  it  out 
with  a  courage  and  resolution  not  ignoble. 
She  suffers,  and  not  a  complaint  passes 
her  lips.  She  has  never  been  a  weak 
woman.  She  is  not  weak  now.  And  her 
whole  happiness  and  success  in  life  are  at 
stake. 

One  afternoon,  Avhen  she  has  been  sit- 
ting,  bored  to  death,  looking  above  her 

187 


The  Beauty 

novel  through  the  window  at  the  drip- 
ping autumn  garden,  the  great  doctor  is 
announced  unexpectedly. 

"  Doctor  !  "  she  exclaims.  "  How  good 
of  you  to  look  me  up  !  I  should  have 
gone  melancholy  mad  if  you  hadn't  come ! 
This  is  the  most  hateful  place  in  all  Eng- 
land. How  much  will  you  give  me  for 
it?" 

She  has  still  her  old  vivacity  and  the 
manner  of  a  beautiful  woman.  She  is 
perfectly  dressed,  and  in  the  creeping 
shadows  of  the  November  afternoon, 
with  her  face  half  hidden  by  her  white 
hand,  one  might  fancy  her  lovely  still. 

"  I  have  been  studying  your  case,  mad- 
am," says  the  doctor.  He  is  compara- 
tively young  and  eager  in  his  profession. 
He  looks  straight  at  Lena  as  he  speaks. 

"  Well  ?  "  she  says.  She  sits  down  at 
the  tea-table,  which  is  placed  near  the 
fire,  and  alters  the  position  of  some  cups. 
The  china  clatters  a  little  in  her  hands. 

"  It  is  not  well,  I  fear,"  he  answers  not 
easily  and  after  a  while.  "  I  have  come 
here  for  a  purpose,  madam.    I  have  made 

i8S 


The  Beauty 

up  my  mind — I  think  it  right  to  tell  you 
— that  I  can  do  nothing  more  for  you. 
Your  case  is  incurable." 

"  It's  a  lie  !  "  she  cries  suddenly.  "  It's 
a  lie  !  "  And  she  turns  upon  him  in  a 
rage. 

After  a  while  he  leaves  her.  She  be- 
lieves him.  Perhaps  she  believed  at  first. 
The  short  twilight  fades  very  quickly — 
the  fire  almost  goes  out.  One  last  flame 
shows,  haggard  and  terrible,  the  face 
which  she  used  to  say  with  some  sort  of 
justice  was  the  most  beautiful  in  London. 
A  horror  of  great  darkness  covers  her  at 
last. 

"  If  I  were  a  woman  in  a  book,"  she 
whispers,  "  I  should  kill  myself;  but  in 
real  life  I  shall  go  on  living,  and  living — 
for  ever." 

And  her  head  falls  upon  her  hands. 


1S9 


The  Peasant 


The   Peasant 

"  De  tous  les  appuis  le  plus  sur  est  encore  la  force 
d'ame." 

Anna  may  be  seventy  years  old.  She 
has  a  face  hard  and  strong  and  so  wrinkled 
and  furrowed  that  one  cannot  tell  at  all 
what  a  girlish  Anna  may  have  been  like. 
She  has  a  great,  gaunt,  bent,  old  figure 
like  a  man's,  hands  that  have  done  the 
work  of  a  man  for  years,  and  a  nature 
which  is  celebrated  rather  for  its  stern 
enduring  masculine  properties  than  for 
any  feminine  softness  at  all.  • 

Anna  is  not,  it  must  be  confessed, 
lovely  to  look  at  or  meek  to  deal  with. 
She  is  of  Norfolk,  and  has  the  cool  steady 
independence  which  is  essentially  of  east- 
ern England.  Anna  will  look  her  visitor, 
be  he  king  or  beggar,  full  in  the  face,  and 
with  an  unruffled  composure  which,  if  one 
met  it  in  a  duchess  instead  of  an  ugly  old 
13  193 


The  Peasant 

woman  who  works  coarsely  for  her  bread, 
one  would  say  was  the  perfection  of  good- 
breeding.  Anna  is  never  surprised,  or, 
as  she  would  say  herself,  took  aback, 
under  any  circumstances.  She  will  turn 
round  from  swearing  in  a  gruff  voice  and 
deeply  at  her  farm  boy,  who  is  also  her 
grandson,  to  bid  the  parson  "  Good  morn- 
ing "  with  an  ease  that  has  a  kind  of 
dignity  in  it,  and  with  the  finest  uncon- 
sciousness of  wrong-doing.  No  one  in- 
deed has  ever  attempted  to  teach  Anna 
her  duty — or,  at  least,  has  never  made 
such  an  attempt  twice.  Once,  it  is  true, 
the  parson's  gentle  sister  essays  to  point 
out  to  Anna  that  to  treat  Sunday  with 
a  sublime  indifference  and  to  work  through 
it  as  if  it  were  a  weekday  is  morally 
wrong. 

"  Ay,"  says  Anna,  quite  unmoved,  and 
looking  her  visitor  very  full  and  directly 
in  the  face,  with  a  lean  horny  old  hand 
resting  on  the  table.  "  That  may  be. 
Like  enough.  But  if  I  don't  do  wrong 
Polly 'd  starve.  And  I'll  be  damned 
first." 

194 


The  Peasant 

If  Anna  had  any  time  for  reh'gion, 
which  she  has  not,  she  would  be  a  Dis- 
senter. She  has  no  better  reason  to  give 
for  her  predilections  for  schism  than  to 
say,  with  her  usual  calm  directness,  "  That 
may  be  all  very  true.  But  it's  my  way 
of  thinking — same  as  yours  is  yours." 
Which  seems  in  a  manner  to  clinch  the 
argument. 

Anna's  husband,  whom  she  regarded, 
and  now  makes  no  disguise  of  having  re- 
garded, as  a  fool,  has  been  dead  many 
years.  Anna's  children,  with  one  excep- 
tion, have  left  that  bleak  Norfolk  village 
and  gone  out  into  the  world.  For  the 
exception  Anna  toils  and  will  toil  till  the 
day  of  her  death. 

Polly  is  supposed  by  the  neighbors, 
whispering  among  themselves,  to  be  a 
little  daft.  They  take  very  good  care 
indeed  that  their  whisper  does  not  reach 
Anna,  of  whose  steady,  keen  eyes,  gruff 
old  voice,  and  great,  slow  anger  they  are 
not  a  little  in  awe.  Polly  marries  miser- 
ably, but  on  the  wedding-day  there  is  a 
certain  dumb  sort  of  triumph  in  Anna's 

195 


The   Peasant 

manner.  Men  don't  marry  daft  ones.  It 
seems  that  the  wedding  should  be  a  sort 
of  proof,  not  to  Anna,  who  has  no  self- 
deceptions,  but  to  Anna's  neighbors,  that 
Polly  is  as  sensible  as  any  of  them. 

Eight  years  afterwards  Anna,  who  has 
watched  over  the  fortunes  of  her  child 
like  some  grim  and  loving  Providence, 
falls  ill,  during  which  illness  Polly's  hus- 
band takes  the  opportunity  of  deserting 
her,  and  leaves  her,  half-witted  and  wholly 
incompetent  to  meet  the  world,  to  fight 
it  alone.  Anna  gets  up  from  that  bed  of 
sickness  cursing  herself  quite  freely  for 
having  given  way  to  an  indisposition  for 
the  first  time  in  her  hard  life.  The  neigh- 
bors notice  a  new  sternness  and  resolution 
about  her  gray  old  lips,  which  have  been 
firm  always,  and  there  is  a  singular  keen- 
ness and  steadiness  in  her  eyes. 

From  that  time  forth  she  devotes  her 
old  life  and  her  fierce  old  energies  to  Polly 
and  the  hapless  half-dozen  babies  with 
whom  Polly  has  been  left.  Out  of  a  mea- 
gre saving  Anna  buys  a  little  farm,  which 
she  works  at  seventy  years  old  unaided, 

196 


The  Peasant 

unless  her  grandson  of  six  can  be  looked 
on  in  the  light  of  a  help.  She  takes 
Polly  and  the  babies  to  her  own  cottage, 
and  toils  for  them  fiercely,  and  yet  con- 
tentedly, late  and  early,  Sunday  and 
weekday,  always.  She  takes  no  holidays. 
She  is  ignorant  of  farm  work,  and  learns 
it  at  threescore  years  and  ten  with  aston- 
ishing patience,  thoroughness,  and  sagac- 
ity. She  goes  out  in  all  weathers.  She 
wears  always  the  same  dun-colored  gar- 
ments, half-feminine  and  half-masculine. 
Her  furrowed  and  shrewd  old  face  is 
always  partially  hidden  in  a  great  bonnet 
which  may  have  been  white  once  and  is 
certainly  white  no  longer.  She  has  not  a 
single  affectation  of  manliness — having 
indeed  neither  the  leisure  nor  disposition 
for  affectations  of  any  kind — -and  is  yet 
more  than  half  a  man  and  doing  a  man's 
work  with  perfect  simplicity  and  thor- 
oughness. In  quite  a  little  while  after 
she  has  purchased  her  farm  the  live-stock 
dealers  become  aware  that  they  have  to 
deal  with  an  old  woman  who  can  drive  a 
bargain  better  than  any  of  her  sons,  and 

197 


The  Peasant 

who  can  tell  the  points  of  a  horse  with 
exceeding  shrewdness  and  accuracy. 
Anna  may  be  heard  swearing  at  her  pigs 
and  chickens  in  a  great,  gruff,  friendly 
fashion  in  the  early  mornings  and  at  night, 
or  met  trudging  the  eight  miles  to  mar- 
ket, with  her  old  eyes,  under  the  dis- 
reputable bonnet,  getting  even  a  little 
brighter  and  keener  than  usual  over  the 
prospect  of  sharp  business  in  the  future. 

She  is  everywhere  spoken  of  as  honest. 
She  has  certainly  not  derived  a  code  of 
morals  from  the  Church,  which  she 
doesn't  believe  in,  or  from  the  chapel, 
which  she  doesn't  attend,  but  has,  per- 
haps, drawn  up  one  unconsciously  for 
herself,  and  made  it  uncommonly  short, 
simple,  and  sincere. 

The  gentry  to  whom  she  regularly  sells 
the  farm  produce  are  a  little  afraid  of  a 
person  so  direct  and  uncompromising. 
Anna,  indeed,  is  the  woman  of  one  idea 
— which  is  Polly — and  has  no  time  or 
inclination  for  social  amenities  at  all. 
The  neighbor  who  joins  her  when  she  is 
driving  her  pigs  in  to  market  is  not  a  little 

193 


The  Peasant 

rebuffed  in  her  gossip  by  a  person  who  is 
entirely  intent  on  the  business  in  hand, 
and  whose  answers  and  dictums  are  per- 
fectly gruff,  shrewd,  and  to  the  point.  It 
is  thought,  and  said,  by  the  Squire's 
lady,  who  attempts  to  interest  Anna  in 
the  outside  world,  that  the  old  woman  is 
invincibly  ignorant  and  narrow.  When 
she  is  told,  with  some  effusion  and  a  de- 
sire to  make  her  realize  the  importance 
of  the  event,  of  the  birth  of  a  prince,  her 
old  eyes  rest  wistfully  for  a  moment  on 
the  smallest  and  forlornest  of  Polly's 
babies,  and  she  can't  be  brought  to  say 
anything  more  enthusiastic  than  that  it's 
to  be  hoped  he'll  be  brought  up  godly. 

She  is,  in  fact,  as  is  said,  narrow.  Her 
staunch  old  life  has  but  one  interest,  and 
anything  which  does  not  touch  that  does 
not  touch  her.  For  a  feeble  Polly  at 
home  she  works  ceaselessly  her  rheumatic 
old  limbs  and  her  weary  old  brain.  Be- 
cause of  Polly  she  has  no  time  for  the 
talkings  and  the  tea-drinkings  which  alle- 
viate other  old  lives,  perhaps.  For  Polly 
her  business  instincts  must  be  ever  shrewd 

199 


The  Peasant 

and  on  the  alert.  Because  of  Polly  she 
must  toil  always  and  rest  never — must  be, 
if  you  will,  narrow,  concentrated,  money- 
grubbing,  and,  as  it  is  often  said,  wholly 
unfeminine ;  though  that  she  is  unfemi- 
nine  in  the  sense  in  which  an  idle  woman 
shrieking  for  her  rights  on  a  platform,  or 
an  hysterical  one  blaspheming  for  them 
in  a  novel,  is  unfeminine,  will  scarcely  be 
thought.  The  only  right  Anna  wants  is, 
in  fact,  to  keep  Polly.  She  does  the 
work  of  a  man,  because  if  she  did  not 
Polly  would  starve.  She  has  lived  among 
men,  and  become  in  some  sort  of  them, 
because  she  must.  Even  if  it  had  been  in 
her  nature  to  be  tender,  clinging,  and 
simple,  her  circumstances  would  have  de- 
nied her  the  indulgence  of  those  old-fash- 
ioned qualities.  She  has  the  coarseness 
of  a  man  because  she  has  done  the  work 
of  a  man,  and  is  infected  with  his  rough- 
ness as  well  as  with  his  strength  and  pur- 
pose. 

Yet  even  Anna — towards  Polly  and 
Polly's  babies  only — has  some  of  the 
dearer  and  softer  virtues  which  make  a 

200 


The  Peasant 

woman.  When  she  goes  home  in  the 
dusk  she  will  tend  Polly's  babies,  espe- 
cially the  smallest  of  all,  whom  she  thinks 
lovely,  with  her  hard  old  face  tender  and 
her  rough  hands  gentle. 

She  encourages  this  infant — a  sad  in- 
fant, with  some  of  Polly's  daftness  on  its 
poor  little  vacant   face — to   Avalk,  or  lift 
itself  up  with   the  assistance  of  a  great 
finger,    and    calling  it   all  the  time  by  a 
number   of   names    and    in    terms   which 
shock  delicate  persons,  but  mean  love  not 
the  less.      Towards  Polly  herself  Anna  is 
always  in  a  coarse   fashion    gentle,    and 
strongly  patient.     Though  she  will  allow 
no  one  else  to  suggest  to  her  that  Polly's 
brain  power  is  not  so  great  as  it  should  be, 
that  she  accepts  the   fact   is  evident,    if 
only  by  the  way  in  which,  worn  out  with 
hard  work  herself  at  night,  she  will  do 
Polly's  work   for  her  without  a  word  of 
rebuke.      Sometimes  in   the  dusk,  when 
Polly     falls    stupidly    asleep,     with    her 
pretty,  foolish  head  on  her  folded  arms  on 
the  table,  the  old  woman,  rocking  Polly's 
baby  to    sleep    on   her  shrivelled    breast, 

20 1 


The  Peasant 

looks  at  Polly  with  eyes  full  of  3^earning 
and  pity;  wakes  her  up  at  last  with  a  great 
gentleness;  helps  to  put  her  to  bed, 
smoothing  the  pretty  hair  with  a  sad  pride 
and  old  rough  fingers;  and  stands  for  a 
moment  looking  at  this  girl,  who  has  been 
a  burden  and  sorrow  all  her  life,  asleep 
in  the  poor  bed,  a  child  on  either  side 
of  her,  with  shrewd  old  eyes  that  are  dim 
with  something  that  is  not  wholly  tender- 
ness or  pain  or  affection,  and  yet  partakes 
of  them  all.  Anna  is  up  the  next  morn- 
ing long  before  Polly  is  stirring,  and  may 
be  heard  swearing  at  the  animals  and  the 
grandson  farm  boy,  of  whom  she  is  in- 
finitely fond,  in  the  first  dawn. 

One  day  Anna  is  taken  ill.  She  says 
nothing  about  it.  There  is  no  one  to  say 
anything  to.  Polly  has  herself  weakly 
health  as  well  as  a  weakly  intellect,  and 
has  the  children  to  see  to  as  best  she 
can.  A  doctor  is  out  of  the  question 
when  one  lives  as  hard  as  Anna  has  lived 
all  her  life.  So  she  goes  to  work  as  usual, 
and  as  she  must.  There  comes  a  day 
when  her  gruff  old  voice,  shouting,  and,  it 

202 


The  Peasant 

is  to  be  feared,  cursing  about  the  farm, 
is  weaker  than  usual.  There  is  a  sort  of 
mist  before  her  keen  eyes,  and  she  has  a 
feeling  creeping  into  her  heart  as  if  noth- 
ing mattered  very  much,  and  would  soon 
cease  to  matter  at  all.  She  gets  a  little 
brandy  from  the  inn.  Having  been 
sternly  abstemious  all  her  life,  it  revives 
her  for  a  while.  She  puts  the  farm  in 
careful  order.  She  gives  a  few  instruc- 
tions to  her  little  grandson,  who  looks  up 
bewildered  into  her  gray  old  face.  She 
sits  down  in  the  stable  at  last,  with  her 
trembling  lips  moving  in  a  vague  prayer. 
She  has  not  prayed  much  hitherto,  un- 
less to  work  is  to  pray,  as  some  think. 
"  Polly  won't  be  able  to  keep  up  the 
farm,"  she  says  faintly;  "  Polly's  too 
daft."  She  prays  God  to  see  to  that 
helpless  creature  and  those  helpless  chil- 
dren when  this  thing  which  she  feels 
coming  upon  her  has  come. 

"It'll  be  the  Union,"  she  says;  "I 
could  only  keep  them  out  of  it  a  little 
while."  She  murmurs  over  the  verse  of 
a  hymn — a  hymn  ending  "  Glory,  glory," 

203 


The  Peasant 

and  entirely  inappropriate  and  unsuitable 
— which  they  used  to  sing  at  chapel  in 
the  far-off  days  when  she  had  time  to  go 
there.  After  that  she  knows  nothing. 
The  little  grandson,  finding  her  presently, 
runs  crying  for  help,  and  two  laborers  lift 
this  poor  old  dying  creature  on  a  board 
and  carry  her  towards  home.  She  does 
not  know  who  they  are.  She  has  for- 
gotten most  things.  She  has  ceased  to 
care  for  almost  everything  but  one  thing, 
and  only  gasps  to  them  before  she  dies 
not  to  take  her  home — dead — to  Polly — 
lest  Polly  should  "  take  on." 

A  heroine  ?  A  martyr  to  a  cause  ? 
Why,  no.  Only  a  coarse,  ugly  old  crea- 
ture, who  expiates  the  crime  of  bringing 
a  daft  Polly  into  the  world  by  working 
and  dying  for  her.     Only  that,  after  all. 


204 


The  Frenchman 


•■;i 


The   Frenchman 


"  La  gaite  est  pres  de  la  bonte." 

Jean  is  perhaps  five-and-thirty  years 
old.  Jean  has  a  little  moustache  waxed 
carefully  at  the  ends,  a  little  intellect  un- 
commonly quick  and  bright,  and  a  manner 
into  which  are  condensed  the  most  per- 
fect good-humor,  cheeriness,  politeness, 
obligeance  and  savoir-faire  in  the  world. 
Jean  owns,  in  fact,  a  number  of  charming 
characteristics  for  which  synonyms  are 
not  to  be  found  either  in  the  English  lan- 
guage or  nation.  He  has  a  verve  and 
aplomb  quite  unlimited.  He  dramatizes 
his  words  by  an  action  of  the  hands,  face, 
and  shoulders  entirely  expressive.  He  is 
as  free  from  self-consciousness  as  an  in- 
fant. He  wears,  with  a  delight  that  is 
perfectly  fresh  and  youthful,  collars  and 
cuffs  which  have  Frenchman  stamped  all 

207 


The  Frenchman 

over  them,  and  ties  his  ties  in  a  little  bow 
the  jauntiness  of  which  no  EngHshman 
has  ever  accomplished  or,  perhaps,  es- 
sayed. 

Jean  is  from  Paris.  He  is  not,  as  he 
would  say  himself  with  a  perfect  freedom 
from  embarrassment,  of  the  high  world. 
Jean's  papa,  whom  he  speaks  of  even  now 
with  tears  in  his  quick  and  emotional 
eyes,  was  in  fact  an  obscure  clerk  in  an 
obscure  ofifice  on  the  Boulevards.  Jean 
himself  lives  in  London,  and  having  a 
very  little  voice,  a  great  sense  of  music, 
and  an  infinite  amount  of  what  his  earliest 
patroness  calls  chic,  as  if  it  were  a  sub- 
stantive, sings  comic  songs  in  his  own 
language  at  the  "At  Homes"  of  great 
persons  in  London, 

Jean  is  by  way  of  being  a  success.  He 
sings,  and,  if  it  may  be  so  said,  makes  a 
fool  of  himself  with  an  abandon  which 
pleases  greatly  a  solid  British  audience, 
that  has  never  and  cou]d  never  so  abandon 
itself  for  a  second.  Jean  uses  a  thousand 
gestures — from  Paris.  He  gives  one  the 
impression  of  being  entirely  carried  away 

20S 


The  Frenchman 

on  the  swing  and  rhythm  of  his  song  and 
music.  He  is  undaunted  always  by  the 
adversities  of  any  circumstances  in  which 
he  may  find  himself.  And  that  he  often 
finds  himself  at  the  fashionable  party  in 
circumstances  uncommonly  trying  to  his 
art  and  to  his  temper  will  not  be  doubted. 

Jean  makes  a  little  way  for  himself  to 
the  piano  through  the  rudest  crowd  in 
the  world,  a  crowd  of  well-dressed  Eng- 
lish women,  with  an  infinite  patience, 
politeness,  and  sweet  temper.  Jean  re- 
ceives the  elbows  of  the  modern  Amazo- 
nian daughter  in  his  eye,  with  a  murmur 
of  apology  in  his  own  courteous  language 
on  his  lips.  Jean,  who  has  the  misfor- 
tune to  understand  English  perfectly, 
though  he  can  only  speak  it  a  little,  lis- 
tens to  a  thousand  perfectly  candid  ex- 
pressions of  opinion  on  himself.  It  dawns 
upon  him,  quite  early  in  his  modest  ca- 
reer, that  his  audience  do  not  for  the  most 
part  understand  a  word  of  Avhat  he  sings. 

"  When  I  come  to  'Yde  Park  in  my 
song,"  he  says  in  confidence  and  the  very 
worst  English  to  an  elderly  and  cynical 
14  209 


The  Frenchman 

guest  who  is  leaning  against  a  mantel- 
piece, yawning,  "  they  laugh — 'ow  they 
laugh !  And  there  is  no  joke  there — 
none." 

"  It's  the  first  word  they've  understood, 
you  know,"  says  the  cynic.  And  Jean 
lifts  his  shoulders  with  a  resigned  smile 
and  a  sigh. 

He  perceives,  with  his  gay  little  sense 
of  humor  pleasantly  tickled,  that  many 
persons  are  shocked  at  his  innocent  airs, 
on  the  principle  that  whatever  is  French 
is  also  necessarily  improper,  while  others, 
the  "  new  English  mees,"  for  instance, 
are  pleased  in  the  delusion  that  they  are 
listening  to  something  risque  and  music- 
hall.  Jean  bears,  with  his  gay  equanimity 
quite  undisturbed,  the  stony,  unsmiling 
stare  of  the  despondent  British  milor  who 
has  been  towed  to  the  party  by  a  fashion- 
able wife,  and  is  full  of  pessimism  and 
longings  for  his  study  and  a  newspaper. 

"  But  yes,"  says  Jean,  with  a  shrug. 
"It  is  easier  when  }-ou  smile.  You  do 
not  smile  much,  you  English.  I  do  not 
do  it  for  pleasure,  you  understand.     I  am 

2IO 


The  Frenchman 

— how  do  you  call  it  ? — mercenary.  It  is 
for  Marie,  and  little  Jules  and  Bebe." 

Marie  is  Jean's  wife,  a  young  wife  still, 
who  takes  her  part  in  the  performance  by 
playing  Jean's  accompaniments  and  smil- 
ing a  little  at  the  jokes  which  she  has 
heard  a  thousand  times,  and  at  Jean. 
Jean,  whose  good  temper  has  never  been 
shaken  by  the  rudeness  of  servants,  the 
meanness  of  employers,  the  candor  of 
audiences,  and  the  sips  of  sweet  lemonade 
which    are   spoken   of   by  the  hostess  as 

refreshment,"  has  a  quick  rage  storming 
in  his  breast  when  an  English  madam 
suggests  as  delicately  as  she  can  to  Marie 
that  Marie  should  dress,  for  professional 
purposes,  in  a  style  more  gay  and  French. 
Jean  thinks  Marie  quite  lovely  always. 
Loveliest  of  all,  perhaps,  in  that  very  old 
black  frock  which  he  bought  with  her  in 
Paris  in  a  brief  honeymoon  time  of  pros- 
perity. He  thinks  Marie  looks  her  best 
with  her  dark  hair  disordered  by  the 
clutches  of  Bebe,  with  the  little  flush  that 
comes  into  her  cheeks  after  a  vivacious 
game  on  the  floor  with  Jules.     It  is  Marie 

211 


The  Frenchman 

herself  who  perceives  that  madam  is  right, 
who  soothes  Jean's  indignation  with  a 
small>  brown  hand  laid  appealingly  on  his 
gay  waistcoat,  who  reminds  him  that  little 
indignities  mustn't  matter  when  one  has 
to  think  of  the  children,  and  who  makes 
herself,  out  of  the  cheapest  materials,  a 
fine  little  gown  and  bonnet,  bright  with 
the  contrast  of  colors  such  as  only  a 
Frenchwoman  dares  to  attempt. 

The  little  couple  are  poor  indeed,  even 
when  Jean  becomes  among  a  select  coterie 
in  some  degree  fashionable,  but  they  are 
as  happy,  perhaps,  as  any  two  people  in 
the  world.  They  trudge  cheerfully  from 
Pimlico,  where  they  lodge  obscurely,  to 
some  fine  house  in  the  West  End.  Jean 
tucks  Marie's  slight  hand  under  his  arm. 
He  treats  her  with  a  politeness  which  is 
not  only  of  the  manner,  but  of  the  heart. 
He  is  attached  to  her  with  that  generous, 
impulsive,  demonstrative  affection  which 
is  just  a  little  ridiculous,  and  most  true. 
Marie,  indeed,  is  not  amused,  but  touched, 
when  Jean,  with  a  spontaneous  action 
which  is  wholly  natural,  lays  his  hand  on 

212 


The  Frenchman 

his  heart,  and  bursts  out  into  a  quick 
French  torrent  of  warm  words.  They 
have  been  married  six  years,  and  have 
still  for  each  other,  in  some  sort,  the 
feeling  of  lovers.  Madam,  in  fact,  their 
early  patroness,  who  has  herself  been  a 
long  while  prosily  married  to  a  great  deal 
of  money,  suspects  them  for  some  time 
of  being  bride  and  bridegroom,  and,  when 
she  learns  of  her  mistake  by  accident, 
says,  "  Aren't  these  French  people  extra- 
ordinary ?  ''  and  gives  them  up,  as  it 
were,  in  despair. 

Jean  adds  to  domestic  affection  an  in- 
finite and  blithe  contentment.  He  has 
an  air  of  enjoying  himself  at  the  parties 
he  attends  professionally  which  is  quite 
inspiriting.  He  takes  a  cup  of  tepid  tea 
beforehand  with  quite  a  blithe  smile,  and 
by  way  of  raising  his  spirits  to  the  requi- 
site pitch  of  hilarity  necessary  to  his  en- 
tertainments. When  the  party  is  over 
he  buttons  himself  cheerfully  into  a  tight 
overcoat,  wraps  up  Marie  in  her  shawls, 
and  the  pair  go  out  into  the  winter  night, 
talking  and  gay.       They  slip  through  the 

213 


The  Frenchman 

carriages  waiting  for  the  guests  and  take 
the  last  omnibus  to  Pimlico.  Jean's 
good-humor  does  not  desert  him  even  in 
this  abominable  vehicle  when  he  is  sat  on 
by  the  two  stout  women  who  apparently 
live  in  omnibuses,  or  when  his  boots, 
which  are  small  and  patent  leather,  and 
of  which  he  is  a  little  bit  proud,  are  crushed 
by  the  heavy  feet  of  the  vulgar. 

For  Marie's  sake,  indeed,  he  would 
like  to  ride  in  a  carriage.  Towards  her 
his  feelings  are  infinitely  chivalrous, 
tender,  and  protecting.  For  himself,  he 
is  not  particular.  Perhaps  because  he 
has  not  been  brought  up  with  the  more 
fastidious  tastes  of  a  higher  class.  Or, 
perhaps,  because  he  is  by  nature  gay, 
unselfish,  and  well  contented  to  take 
things  as  they  are. 

Jean  is  glad  when  his  performances 
take  place  in  the  afternoon.  Then,  when 
he  and  Marie  come  home,  they  can  have 
a  game  with  the  children.  Jean  lacks,  it 
may  be,  many  of  those  stout,  solid,  dura- 
ble virtues  of  which  Englishmen  are 
proud,   but  he  is  at  least  domestic  to  a 

214 


The  Frenchman 

fault.  After  the  game  Jean  smokes  med- 
itatively. The  room  is  only  the  usual 
room  of  a  second-rate  English  lodging- 
house,  abominable  with  antimacassars, 
artificial  flowers,  and  oleographs,  but  it 
makes  a  pretty  picture  with  Jules  of  four, 
in  a  frock,  playing  on  the  floor,  and 
Marie,  in  her  old  gown  and  the  pretty  dis- 
order in  her  hair,  walking  up  and  down 
and  singing,  in  a  little  voice  that  would 
be  of  no  use  at  all  professionally,  to  the 
baby  on  her  shoulder.  When  she  has  put 
the  children  to  bed,  and  she  and  Jean 
have  had  coffee  such  as  the  British  ser- 
vant never  made,  Jean  comes  to  the  little 
fire  where  Marie  is  standing  and  puts  his 
impulsive  arm  round  her  waist.  He  says 
a  number  of  things  to  her  which  do  not 
bear  translation  ;  which  are  ridiculous 
even  in  French,  perhaps;  or  in  any  lan- 
guage; though  Marie  does  not  think  so. 

They  practise  Jean's  new  songs  after- 
wards, to  Marie's  accompaniment  on  a 
lamentable  hired  piano.  Jean  makes  his 
grimaces  and  expressive  actions  of  hand 
and  shoulders  quite  faithfully.     He  over- 

215 


The  Frenchman 

hears  once  some  one  say  at  one  of  his 
parties  that  to  make  a  buffoon  of  yourself 
is,  from  a  cultured  point  of  view,  possibly 
one  of  the  lowest  means  of  making  a  live- 
lihood extant.  Is  it  ?  Well,  perhaps. 
The  remark  strikes  a  little  chill  at  the 
time  even  into  Jean's  brave  and  cheery 
soul.  But,  after  all,  what  would  you  ? 
To  earn  a  livelihood  commonly  is  better, 
when  one  has  Marie  and  the  children  to 
think  of,  than  not  to  earn  it  at  all.  The 
end  justifies  the  means,  perhaps.  And  if 
one  can  be  a  clown  and  buffoon,  and  yet 
gay,  honest,  sober,  and  self-respecting, 
Jean  is  no  doubt  the  person  who  accom- 
plishes that  difficult  feat. 

The  last  news  of  the  little  party  is, 
however,  that  Marie's  uncle  has  left  them 
some  money,  enough  and  not  too  much 
for  wants  so  quiet  and  domestic;  that 
Jean  thinks  of  giving  up  his  occupation, 
and  returning  with  Marie,  Jules,  and 
Bebe  to  that  heaven  which  is  called  Paris. 


216 


The  Schoolgirl 


The  Schoolgirl 

"  Le  temps  s'en  va,  le  temps  s'en  va,  ma  dame  ; 
Las  !  le  temps  non  :  mais  nous  nous  en  allons." 

Joyce  has  brown  curls  tied  with  a  rib- 
bon. She  has  a  face  all  laughter  and 
dimples.  She  is  fifteen  years  old,  and 
the  happiest  creature  in  creation. 

Joyce  does  not  learn  very  much.  She 
has,  indeed,  come  to  school  with  the  ex- 
press purpose  of  learning  as  little  as  she 
can.  She  comes  down  to  practise  Bee- 
thoven perfectly  blithe  and  contented  at 
seven  o'clock  on  a  winter's  morninsf. 
She  murders  that  master  with  a  gayety 
of  soul  quite  unconquerable.  She  glides 
from  the  sonata  in  G  to  the  irresistible 
air  of  the  last  coster  song.  She  commits 
this  and  all  her  other  misdemeanors  in 
such  a  manner  that  they  are  invariably 
found  out. 

219 


The  Schoolmrl 


o 


Before  an  examination  she  may  be  seen 
endeavoring  with  astonishing  hopefulness 
and  a  gay  smile  to  learn  propositions  of 
Euclid  by  heart.  Her  fingers  are  always 
covered  with  ink,  and  the  ridiculous 
curls  fall  over  her  French  exercises  and 
blot  them. 

She  is  lectured  to  by  a  University  Ex- 
tended gentleman,  and  draws  little  carica- 
tures of  him  upon  her  blotting-paper  all 
the  time.  She  astonishes  the  examiners 
at  the  Viva  Voce  at  the  end  of  the  term 
with  the  singular  ignorance  and  vivacity 
of  her  replies.  When  she  is  reproached 
by  Intellecta  of  Girton  for  her  terrible  fri- 
volity at  the  mathematical  class,  Joyce 
puts  her  impulsive  arms  round  that  learned 
lady's  neck,  and  says  with  a  hug  that  she 
is  frightfully  sorry,  only  she  doesn't  really 
think  she  can  help  it. 

Perhaps  she  cannot.  Perhaps  it  is  not 
her  fault  that  she  is  so  absurdly  careless 
and  light-hearted.  But'  if  it  is,  they  are 
both  iniquities,  Girton  thinks  with  a  sigh, 
which  time  is  sure  to  cure. 

220 


The  Schoolgirl 

It  is,  perhaps,  scarcely  necessary  to  say 
that  Joyce  finds  herself  quite  unable  to 
keep  the  rules.  There  is  an  irresistible 
force  in  her  nature  which  compels  her 
to  jump  downstairs  two  or  more  steps 
at  a  time,  to  talk  in  the  passage^  and 
scream  in  the  awful  solemnity  of  the  Ger- 
man class  when  a  mouse  runs  across  the 
floor. 

When  Madame,  who  is  ugly,  and  old, 
and  kindly,  and  of  whom  Joyce  is  fond, 
takes  her  pupil  to  task  for  her  naughti- 
ness, Joyce's  storm  of  crying  and  repent- 
ance is,  for  two  minutes,  quite  over- 
whelming. And  then  she  looks  up  with 
an  April  face  of  smiles  shining  through 
her  tears,  and  in  an  incredibly  short 
space  of  time  may  be  heard  enjoying  her- 
self without  a  care  in  the  world  in  the 
playground. 

Is  she  insincere  ?  She  has  rather  a 
heart  full  of  impulse,  and  honesty,  and 
good  intentions.  She  is  only  young. 
With  her  companions  she  is  quite  pop- 
ular and  well  beloved.  She  quarrels  with 
them    sometimes,    and    is   perfectly  out- 

221 


The  Schoolgirl 

spoken.  She  kisses  them  fiv^e  minutes 
afterwards — on  both  cheeks — and  is 
wholly  reconciled  and  devoted  to  them 
until  the  next  dispute. 

Madame's  husband,  who  is  seventy 
years  old,  is  one  of  Joyce's  particular  ad- 
mirations. She  is  first  attracted  to  him 
because  he  does  not  teach,  or  try  to 
teach,  her  anything.  Joyce  opens  a  con- 
versation one  day  with  him  when  she 
finds  him  working  in  his  flower  garden, 
and  from  henceforth  constitutes  herself 
his  especial  friend.  The  old  man,  who 
has  a  shrunken,  stooping  figure,  and  wears 
a  very  ancient  shiny  black  coat,  is  himself 
no  doubt  attached  to  this  blithe,  unthink- 
ing creature  with  her  dancing  eyes,  her 
whimsical  short  petticoats,  and  her  brown 
curls. 

"  He  is  the  sweetest  old  love  I  ever 
saw,"  says  Joyce  to  Madame.  And 
Madame  has  not  somehow  the  heart  to 
say  that  this  tender  and  effusive  mode  of 
speech  is  scarcely  respectful. 

Don't  you  get  tired,  now  you  are  so 
old,    doing  all  that    stupid  gardening?" 

222 


The  Schoolgirl 

Joyce  asks  with  her  gay  candor  as  she 
s-tands  looking  at  him  one  day. 

Monsieur,  whose  English  accent  is 
quite  perfect,  replies,  "  Yes,  Mademoi- 
selle, a  little."  And  Joyce  thinks  how 
awfully  funny  it  must  feel  to  be  hundreds 
of  years  older  than  any  one  else. 

"  Doesn't  it  ? "  she  asks. 

And  Monsieur,  leaning  on  his  spade, 
and  looking  into  her  bright  face  with  his 
kindly  old  eyes,  says,  "  Yes,  Mademoi- 
selle— perhaps." 

Yet  he  is  glad  almost  to  think,  as  Joyce 
dances  away  to  join  her  companions, 
that  he  will  not  live  to  see  this  blithe, 
quicksilver  creature  in  that  "  awfully 
funny  "  stage  of  age  and  experience. 

Joyce  is  now  more  than  sixteen  years 
old,  and  there  begins  to  be  some  talk  of 
her  leaving  school  for  good.  Monsieur, 
as  they  walk  about  the  garden  sometimes 
in  play-hours,  feels  it  his  duty  to  try  and 
prepare  her  a  little  for  the  world,  of  which 
she  knows  nothing  and  hopes  everything. 
It  is  always  borne  in  upon  him,  indeed, 

223 


The  Schoolgirl 

after  such  conversations,  that  his  efforts 
are  quite  useless.  To  this  girl,  who  has 
known  neither,  sorrow  and  disappoint- 
ments are  words  without  meaning. 

"  Of  course,  I  shan't  be  perfectly 
happy,"  she  says  gayly.  "  Why,  I'm 
not  perfectly  happy  here,  though  this  is 
a  love  of  a  school,  if  they  weren't  so  hor- 
ribly mean  about  holidays,  and  the  butter 
at  the  fifth  form  table  wasn't  too  horrid 
for  anything.  I  get  into  rows,  you  know. 
And  the  last  time  Madame  was  angry  with 
me  I  cried  so  awfully  I  had  to  borrow  all 
the  pocket-handkerchiefs  in  the  dormi- 
tory. 

Monsieur  says  no  more  at  the  time. 
He  arrives  gradually  at  the  conclusion 
that  to  prepare  Joyce  for  the  world  is  im- 
possible, and  perhaps  undesirable.  As 
he  watches  her  unconquerable  joyousness 
he  has,  with  Madame — though  life  has 
spared  neither  of  them — a  vague  and  ri- 
diculous idea  that  it  pay  possibly  spare 
Joyce. 

At  the  end  of  the  term  which  is  to  be 
her  last,  the  girls  act  Julius  Caesar,  with 

224 


The  Schoolgirl 

Joyce  herself  in  the  title  role.  Julius 
Csesar  bundles  up  his  brown  curls  under 
a  head-dress  which  he  fondly  imagines  to 
be  Roman,  He  betrays  an  innocent  girl- 
ish angle  in  every  fold  of  his  toga.  He 
has  not  particularly  bothered  himself  to 
learn  his  part.  He  displays  a  joyous  and 
total  ignorance  of  the  Shakespearian 
meaning  in  every  line.  He  makes  signs 
to  the  prompter  in  the  wings.  When  the 
situation  grows  particularly  tragic  he 
laughs.  He  has  such  an  innocent,  bright 
face,  such  dancing  eyes,  and  such  a  gay 
and  palpable  enjoyment  in  his  own  ridic- 
ulous performance  that  the  audience 
would  forgive  him  a  thousand  worse 
blunders.  Whe»  he  is  murdered  he  can't 
for  the  life  of  him  help  lifting  up  the  cor- 
ner of  the  garment  which  covers  his  face 
and  exchanging  a  wink  with  a  friend  in 
the  front  row.  He  is  seen  jumping  up 
after  his  murder,  some  time  before  the 
curtain  has  quite  descended.  He  re- 
moves his  toga  and  the  head-dress  in  three 
minutes,  and  is  Joyce  again — Joyce  in  a 
girlish  party-frock,  her  curls  tied  up  with 
15  225 


The  Schoolgirl 

a  gala  white  ribbon,  and  her  cheeks  the 
soft  carmine  of  happiness  and  excite- 
ment. 

She  eats  a  very  healthy  schoolgirl  sup- 
per. When,  indeed,  she  thinks  of  the 
next  day,  when  she  is  to  leave  school  for 
ever,  she  is  quite  overcome  with  emotion. 
But  then  she  never  thinks  of  unhappy 
things  very  often  or  very  long  together. 

As  Monsieur  plays  for  the  girls  danc- 
ing in  the  long  schoolroom  afterwards,  on 
the  jingling  school  piano,  he  looks  up 
often  from  the  music,  which,  indeed,  he 
knows  by  heart,  at  Joyce.  She  is  gayer 
almost  than  any  one. 

"It  is  perfectly  dreadful  to  be  going 
away  to-morrow,^'  she  says  to  Monsieur, 
as  she  stands  by  his  side  for  a  minute, 
and  her  eyes  grow  suddenly  a  little  dim. 
She  dances  away  again  in  a  moment,  and 
he  looks  after  her. 

The  next  day  Joyce  leaves  the  '*  love 
of  a  school  "  for  ever,  in  floods  of  tears 
and  a  four-wheeler.     An  old  figure,  very 

226 


The  Schoolgirl 

bent,  and  wearing  an  old  coat,  looks  after 
the  cab  a  long  time.  He  is  glad  to  think 
that  Joyce,  whom  he  has  loved  more  than 
he  knew,  will  be  smiling  again  very  soon, 
and  yet  he  turns  into  the  dull  house  with 
a  sigh  which  is  not  all  for  his  own  lone- 
liness. 

Monsieur  and  Madame  do  not  see  their 
old  pupil  for  five  years.  Joyce  has  been 
abroad.  She  has  been  very  gay,  she 
writes. 

"  Does  very  gay  mean  very  happy  ?" 
says  Madame,  and  Monsieur  answers, 
**  Not  always,  I  think,"  in  his  old  voice. 
And  then  she  comes  back.  She  has  put 
up  the  brown  curls  and  let  down  her  whim- 
sical frock,  as  was  to  be  expected.  She 
looks  a  good  deal  older  and,  in  some  sub- 
tle sense  only,  different.  Which  might 
also  have  been  expected. 

She  kisses  Madame  impulsively  on 
both  cheeks  as  she  used  to  do.  She  in- 
sists, with  a  great  deal  of  her  old  wilful- 
ness and  gaycty,  thar  Monsieur  shall  take 

O  O  "^ 


The  Schoolgirl 

her  round  the  garden.  She  puts  her  girl- 
ish arm — it  is  still  a  girlish  arm,  and  very- 
round  and  slender — through  his,  and 
chatters  to  him  in  her  bright  voice  about 
a  thousand  of  her  gay  doings.  Once  she 
stops  and  looks  all  round  the  old  garden 
carefully. 

"  I  used  to  be  so — extraordinarily — 
happy  here,"  she  says. 

My  dear  Mademoiselle,"  answers 
the  old  man  almost  impulsively,  "  have 
you  not  been  happy  away  from  here  ?  Is 
there  anything — the  matter  ?  " 

"  Nothing,"  she  answers  very  lightly. 
"  Nothing  in  the  world.  I  am  only  grown 
up. 


223 


The  Dog 


i 


The  Dog 


"  Le    devouement    qui    ne    s'exprime   que    par   des 
preuves — " 

Don  is  a  Dandy  Dinmont;  is  sober, 
middle-aged,  and  respectable. 

He  never  gambols  with  the  light- 
minded  of  his  species,  but  he  will  fight 
with  any  of  them,  planning  his  attack 
with  infinite  discretion,  and  taking  the 
deadly  undergrip  of  the  throat  which 
makes  him  equal  to  any  dog  twice  his 
weight.  Don  goes  to  bed  regularly  at  a 
certain  hour  every  night.  He  rises  regu- 
larly each  morning.  He  takes  his  meals 
in  a  decent,  serious  manner,  like  an  elderly 
gentleman  at  his  club,  without  haste  or 
vulgar  enjoyment.  He  has  a  cloth  laid 
for  him  beneath  his  plate.  If  the  cloth 
is  not  there  he  will  not  eat.  If  the  cloth 
is  laid  for  him  in  the  kitchen  he  will  not 

231 


The  Dog 

eat  likewise.  Don  has  all  the  instincts  of 
a  gentleman.  He  is  not,  indeed,  proud. 
For  that  he  is  too  well  bred.  But  to  a 
person  with  a  pedigree  and  of  his  known 
rank  and  sobriety  he  feels  that  some  con- 
sideration is  due.  Such  consideration  he 
exacts. 

He  will  not  sleep  in  his  bed,  for  in- 
stance, unless  his  straw  is  fresh  and  per- 
fect. If  it  is  defective  he  looks  down  at 
it  reproachfully,  and  then  looks  up  still 
more  reproachfully  at  his  master,  who  is 
a  silent,  lonely  man. 

These  two  old  bachelors  are  not  de- 
monstrative, but  they  seem  to  understand 
each  other.  One  knowledge  they  appear 
to  have  in  common,  namely,  that  of  the 
limitations  of  life.  They  both  have  a 
few  small  enjoyments,  to  be  duly  taken 
with  gravity,  but  they  know  that  there  is 
nothing  in  existence  worth  making  much 
stir  about.  They  take  walks  together. 
Don's  ebullitions  of  joy  at  the  prospect 
of  exercise  are  no  doubt  as  irrepressible 
as  they  are  short-lived.  He  soon  settles 
down  into  a  trot  full  of  grave  enjoyment 


The  Dog 

and  decorum.  He  resists  temptation  to 
hunt  in  the  brushwood  with  a  careful  self- 
denial.  These  walks  of  master  and  dog 
in  the  lanes  are  rather  like  their  walk 
through  life — pessimistic  and  varied  by  a 
very  limited  interest  in  passing  events. 
It  would  almost  seem  that  they  have 
an  object  at  the  end  of  their  walk,  but 
the  end  is  home  again,  and  there  is  no 
visible  object  beyond  the  taking  of  exer- 
cise. 

To  his  master,  who  is  preoccupied  and 
spends  many  hours  at  his  desk  in  the 
compilation  of  grave  law-books,  which 
no  one  ever  seems  to  read,  Don  is  indeed 
most  honestly  devoted.  Nevertheless, 
he  errs  sometimes.  Thrice  he  stays  out 
all  night  in  a  manner  disreputable  and 
unworthy  of  his  serious  character.  Once 
the  savage  instincts  of  his  nature  overcome 
his  gentlemanly  civilization,  and  he  de- 
stroys a  couple  of  spring  chickens.  An- 
other time  he  stands  by,  applauding,  while 
a  visitor  commits  a  similar  indiscretion, 
and  exhibits  a  most  reprehensible  self- 
righteousness    during   the    period    of   his 

233 


The  Dog 

friend's  castigation.  Once  he  escapes 
from  supervision  to  wreak  a  long-harbored 
vengeance  upon  a  fox-terrier  in  the  neigh- 
borhood. It  is  grievous  to  relate  that  the 
murderer  is  not  penitent,  but  elated, 
when  he  sees  his  enemy  lying  torn  and 
dead  in  the  dust,  and  is  only  brought  to 
a  fitting  grief  and  contrition  when  his 
master  stands  over  him  with  a  riding- 
whip.  It  is  thought  by  his  master,  who 
is  not  sentimental,  that  the  blows  hurt 
less  than  the  grave  words  with  which  he 
represents  the  enormity  of  such  conduct. 
It  is  at  least  sure  that,  while  Don  takes 
the  punishment  with  a  certain  subdued 
philosophy,  when  it  is  over  he  retires  to 
his  sanctum  at  the  back  of  the  rockery 
and  howls. 

Philosophy  is  one  of  Don's  strong 
points.  Though  he  hates  being  washed, 
he  submits  to  the  weekly  bath  by  a  vul- 
gar and  heavy-handed  coachman  and  a 
most  insulting  disinfectant  soap  with  a 
pessimistic  submission  ■  and  the  air  of 
having  made  up  his  mind  to  face  the 
worst.     As  to  the  rest  of  the  quiet  house- 

234 


The  Dog 

hold,  he  is  in  a  gentlemanly  and  conde- 
scending manner  sufficiently  attached  to 
the  parlor-maid  to  trot  round  the  table 
with  her  at  meals,  but  he  never  loses 
sight  of  the  fact  that  he  and  his  master 
are  of  a  different  world  from  that  beyond 
the  green-baize  door. 

To  his  master  Don  gives,  indeed,  an 
affection  such  as  he  gives  to  no  one  else. 
It  is  like  a  human  affection,  only  better, 
perhaps.  For  his  master  never  actually 
feeds  him  with  his  own  hands,  and  rarely 
punishes  him,  so  it  has  its  root  neither  in 
self-interest  nor  fear.  Don  feels  perhaps 
that  they  two  have  much  in  common. 
They  have  their  sex,  first  of  all.  They 
are  grave  and  judicial,  as  no  woman  could 
be,  when  they  linger  over  their  wine  in 
the  twilight  dining-room  after  dinner. 
They  are  well  content  to  lie  meditative 
and  quiescent  in  the  field  on  Sunday 
afternoons.  They  have  developed  in 
them  that  talent  for  rest  and  thought  which 
is  not  developed  in  either  the  cook  or  the 
parlor-maid.  They  have,  above  all,  a  cer- 
tain philosophic  pessimism  of  life.     They 

235 


The  Dog 

are  too  wise  to  think  that  existence  is 
really  worth  having,  but  they  endure  it 
with  an  uncomplaining  high-bred  patience 
that  gives  them  the  air  of  awaiting  a  con- 
summation which  they  never  really  expect. 
Don  stretches  himself  before  the  fire  on  a 
winter  evening  with  a  grunt  which  says  as 
plainly  as  words,  "  There  are  allevia- 
tions," and  his  master  lights  a  pipe,  with 
a  half-suppressed  sigh,  and  turns  reso- 
lutely to  a  book. 

The  Old  Bachelor  looks  over  the  page 
at  his  companion  once  or  twice.  He  has 
lived  so  long  and  so  entirely  with  Don 
that  it  is  possible  that  he  endows  the 
dog  in  his  own  mind  with  the  power  of 
thought.  At  all  events,  he  tells  a  num- 
ber of  stories  about  Don  which  his  hear- 
ers entirely  refuse  to  believe.  During  the 
long  winter  evenings  they  sit  thus,  their 
comfort  emphasized  by  the  howling  of  the 
wind  in  the  chimney,  the  master  with  his 
book,  the  dog  with  his  long,  long  thoughts 
— for  Don  is  no  great  sleeper,  but  appears 
to  reflect  much.  They  sit  and  await  the 
consummation. 

236 


The  Dog 

Don  is  not  an  old  dog,  though  grave  of 
habit  and  without  the  graces  of  youth. 
His  head  is  indeed  too  large  for  his  queer 
round  body.  His  legs  are  too  short  and 
his  person  so  long  that  in  the  middle  he 
almost  touches  the  ground. 

"  That's  a  centreboard  dog  of  yours," 
says  a  yachting  friend  one  day,  but  the 
remark  falls  flat.  For,  like  many  of  his 
betters,  Don  has  overcome  physical  defi- 
ciency by  mental  excellence.  He  perse- 
veres in  the  chase  v/ith  a  fine  sporting 
spirit,  although  he  knows  full  well  that 
the  smallest  rabbit  can  get  away  from  him 
in  a  canter.  He  probably  has  a  tolerant 
contem.pt  for  leggy  dogs,  and  if  any, 
leggy  or  stumpy,  cast  the  eye  of  dispar- 
agement upon  him,  they  have  to  deal  with 
the  abnormal  jaw  and  the  deadly  under- 
grip. 

With  women  Don  is  patient,  but  con- 
temptuous. His  master  has  an  only 
sister  who  comes  to  stay  once  a  year, 
during  which  visit  Don's  regular  habits 
are  sadly  put  out.     He  walks  out  in  the 

237 


The  Dog 

garden  by  himself,  and  obviously  prefers 
solitude  and  a  word  with  the  gardener  to 
the  society  of  a  person  who  is  more  than 
half  afraid  of  him,  and  calls  him  "  Doggy  " 
and  "  Pretty." 

Children  he  fails  entirely  to  understand. 
He  evidently  considers  them  to  be  some 
debased  form  of  human  creature,  and  en- 
dures their  caresses  with  a  doubting  eye 
fixed  on  his  master,  awaiting  the  word 
to  up  and  slay. 

Don  is  wholly  content  with  his  life  in 
a  philosophic  way,  though  at  times  there 
is  a  look  in  his  melancholy  eyes  which 
seems  to  explain  the  desire  to  get  beyond 
the  limitations  of  his  intelligence.  He 
would  like  to  understand  a  little  more  and 
a  little  better,  which  desire  assuredly 
brings  him  within  touch,  as  it  were,  of 
the  human  intellect. 

"Get  out,  Don!"  ejaculates  the  Old 
Bachelor  sometimes,  when  the  dog's 
clumsy  body  takes  up  the  best  part  of  the 
hearthrug;  and  Don  gets  out  with  a  grunt. 
They  understand  each  other,  quarrel  in  a 

238 


The  Dog 

half-hearted,  manlike  manner,  and  never 
formally  make  it  up.  The  Old  Bachelor 
is  quite  alive  to  Don's  faults,  and  the  dog, 
who  has  never  had  another  master,  pos- 
sibly dreams  of  one  who  might  be  less 
absorbed  in  dull  books,  who  might  take 
more  notice  of  a  faithful  friend,  and  ac- 
knowledge loving  eyes  and  a  wagging 
tail  awaiting  him  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs 
every  morning  at  breakfast-time  with  the 
regularity  of  a  clock.  For  the  Old  Bach- 
elor hurries  into  the  breakfast-room  and 
takes  up  his  letters  with  an  eagerness 
which  is  re-awakened  every  morning,  and 
dies  a  sudden  death  before  the  coffee  is 
poured  into  the  solitary  cup.  The  let- 
ters are  from  printers  or  publishers,  and 
are  dull,  like  the  books  they  print  and 
publish  for  the  Old  Bachelor. 

Thus,  year  in,  year  out,  these  two  phi- 
losophers live  together.  A  little  gray 
appears  at  the  Old  Bachelor's  temples, 
and  on  Don's  heavy  jaw.  Don  begins  to 
grow  rather  stout  and  comfortable;  his 
special  quarries  in  the  rabbit-warren  at 
the  back  of  the  field  hardly  honor  him  by 

239 


The  Dog 

running  away  from  him — a  leisurely  trot 
will  secure  a  safe  retreat  from  the  pursuit 
of  a  person  so  long  and  round  in  the 
body,  so  short  in  the  leg. 

Then  suddenly  the  consummation 
seems  to  loom  upon  that  mental  horizon 
which  has  absorbed  the  Old  Bachelor's 
attention  so  long.  Some  one  has  died 
somewhere  and  .  .  .  well  .  .  .  there  are 
letters  which  are  not  from  printers  and 
publishers.  One  day  the  Old  Bachelor 
packs  his  portmanteau  and  goes  away 
in  a  cab,  leaving  Don  disconsolate  by  the 
dining-room  fire. 

Don  will  not  be  comforted,  and  acts  at 
this  time  with  a  gentlemanly  reserve 
which  is  worthy  of  the  pedigree  on  the 
fast  yellowing  sheet  of  paper  upstairs  in 
the  master's  writing-table.  He  acknowl- 
edges the  efforts  of  the  parlor-maid  to 
console  him  ;  but  he  cannot,  with  the  best 
will  in  the  world,  be  comforted.  He 
knows  that  before  wornen  and  menials  it 
would  be  bad  form  to  break  down,  so  he 
preserves  his  dignified  demeanor  and  leads 
his  quiet  dignified  life  alone  in  the  dining- 

240 


The  Dos 


o 


room,  where  he  takes  his  meals  in  soli- 
tude. There  seems  to  be  in  his  mind 
some  dim  knowledge  that  he  is  master 
now,  and  he  walks  up  the  garden  every 
morning  to  see  what  the  men  are  doing. 
He  sits  in  the  sunlight  on  the  lawn  with 
a  certain  air  of  possession.  And  when  a 
great  cleaning  of  floors  and  washing  of 
spring  curtains  takes  place  he  gravely 
notes  the  bustle,  and  steps  outside  until 
the  rooms  are  fit  for  his  reception. 

The  household  excitement  seems  to 
increase,  and  one  day  Don  is  forced  by 
sudden  circumstances  to  forget  himself. 
He  sees  the  cab  approaching,  and,  recog- 
nizing the  portmanteau,  so  far  loses  sight 
of  his  position  as  to  rush  wildly  into  the 
kitchen  to  tell  the  cook,  who,  as  it  happens, 
is  in  her  best  black  dress  and  a  fluster. 

Don  gets  a  little  flurried,  and  does  not 
exactly  know  how  he  comes  to  find  him- 
self in  the  arms  of  a  total  stranger,  v/ho 
hurries  into  the  dining-room  and,  kneel- 
ing impetuously  on  the  hearthrug,  presses 
a  cheek  which  is  young  and  fresh  still 
against  his  grizzled  face. 
i6  241 


The  Dog 

"  This  is  Don — this  is  Don,  I  know," 
she  says. 

And  the  Old  Bachelor  answers  in  a 
queer  voice : 

"Yes— that  is  Don." 

"  Poor  old  dear — he  doesn't  under- 
stand," cries  the  Consummation,  Avith 
another  hug  and  a  laugh,  which  is  only- 
half  gay. 

Don  looks  from  one  to  the  other  with 
a  doubtful  wag  of  the  tail.  Perhaps  he 
does  understand — a  little. 


242 


The  Caretak 


er 


The   Caretaker 

"  Quand  c'est  le  cceur  qui  conduit,  il  entraine." 

Martha  caretakes  a  decrepit  City  ware- 
house. She  cleans,  or  imagines  that  she 
cleans,  the  offices  of  a  depressed  company 
of  tea  merchants  and  of  a  necessitous 
land  surveyor.  They  confound  her  hope- 
lessly when  they  arrive  every  morning 
and  behold  the  thickness  of  the  dust  on 
their  ledgers  and  the  black  and  smoky 
nature  of  their  fires.  And  Martha  speaks 
of  them  tenderly  as  "  my  gentlemen," 
and  inquires  fondly  after  their  wives  and 
families. 

Martha's  appearance  has,  it  must  be 
confessed,  a  worn  and  dingy  air,  not  un- 
like the  house  she  lives  in.  She  is  inva- 
riably attired  in  an  ancient  shawl  and  a 
frowsy  black  bonnet.  People  are  apt  to 
forget  that  the  wrinkled  old  face  beneath 

245 


The  Caretaker 

it  is  very  kind  and  tender.  The  black- 
ness of  Martha's  aprons  and  the  streaky 
nature  of  her  house-cleaning  cause  them 
to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  London 
grimness  has  never  reached  Martha's  soul. 

Martha  is  boundlessly  simple  and  con- 
tented. It  is  fortunate  that  an  external 
cleanliness  is  not  necessary  to  her  happi- 
ness, since  it  has  been  her  fate  to  look  at 
Thames  Street,  breathe  Thames  Street, 
and  live  in  Thames  Street  since  she  was 
five-and-twenty.  Once  she  has  been  into 
the  country.  But  that  was  a  long  time 
ago;  though  on  the  window-sill  of  her 
attic  there  still  live  miserably  some  of  the 
cuttings  she  took  from  the  plants  she 
brought  back  with  her. 

Martha  waters  those  forlorn  and  stunted 
geraniums  with  the  greatest  pride  and 
indiscretion.  She  imagines  that  the 
smutty  and  despairing  musk  still  smells 
deliciously,  and  puts  her  old  nose  into  it 
and  sniffs  with  the  greatest  enjoyment  in 
the  world.  On  sultry  days  she  opens  her 
window  and  sits  at  work  by  her  ' '  garden. ' ' 
Her  old  face  is  quite  placid  and  contented. 

246 


The  Caretaker 

The  expressive  language  of  the  coster- 
monger  below  rises  to  her  ear.  The 
refreshing  scent  of  decaying  vegetables 
must  quite  overpower  that  of  the  elderly 
musk.  But  either  Martha  has  long 
ceased  to  expect  unalloyed  pleasure,  or  is 
of  such  a  very  simple  nature  that  she  can 
enjoy  imperfect  happiness  perfectly. 

Martha  is  very  proud  of  her  attic.  It 
may  not,  in  fact  does  not,  contain  much 
oxygen.  But  there  is  a  beautiful  picture 
of  the  Queen  smiling  blandly  out  of  a 
tradesman's  almanac  of  the  year  fifty. 
Martha's  circumstances  render  it  neces- 
sary that  there  should  constantly  be  wash- 
ing drying  in  lines  across  the  ceiling.  But 
she  takes  her  meals  quite  blithely  beneath 
this  canopy,  and  has  no  feelings  at  all 
about  cutting  her  cheese — she  never 
seems  to  eat  anything  except  cheese,  or 
drink  anything  except  tea — on  the  patch- 
work quilt  which  covers  the  n^gligd  man- 
ner in  which  she  has  made  her  bed. 

Martha  has  a  table  indeed,  but  it  is 
quite  covered  with  the  accumulated 
treasures  of  a  lifetime.     There  is  a  reli- 

247 


The  Caretaker 

gious  work  presented  to  her  by  a  Bible 
Minister  anghng  for  a  congregation,  which 
Martha  no  doubt  values  the  more  because 
she  cannot  read  it.  There  is  a  creature 
which  may  or  may  not  represent  a  parrot, 
with  boot  buttons  for  eyes  and  a  body  of 
many-colored  wools.  Martha  blows  the 
dust  from  the  glass  case  which  encloses  it 
with  an  infinite  affection  and  reverence. 
She  made  the  parrot  herself  a  long,  long 
time  ago,  and  is  tenderly  proud  of  it  still. 
By  its  side  is  a  Testament  scored  by  a 
hand  long  dead,  and  with  Martha's 
homely  name  written  on  the  fly-leaf. 
There  are  two  china  shepherdesses,  with 
pink  sashes  and  squints,  on  the  mantel- 
piece, and  an  In  Memoriam  card  of 
Martha's  dead  nephew. 

By  the  window  there  is  a  bird  in  a  cage, 
to  whom  Martha  chirrups  cheerfully,  and 
whom  she  addresses  as  'Enery.  The 
bird  never  chirrups  to  Martha,  old  age 
and  the  stifling  air  of  Thames  Street  hav- 
ing long  silenced  him  ■  for  ever.  But 
Martha's  placid  optimism  has  caused  her 
to   believe   persistently   for    many   years 

24S 


The  Caretaker 

that  if  she  only  chirrups  long  and  cheer- 
fully enough  'Enery  will  reply  to  her  at 
last. 

"  He's  wonderful  for  company,"  she 
says,  "  and  eats  next  to  nothing."  Which 
to  Martha's  mind  is  the  greatest  recom- 
mendation a  friend  can  have. 

Martha  is  indeed  well  paid  for  her  care- 
taking.  When  one  considers  the  sketchy 
nature  of  her  cleaning  she  appears  to  be 
ridiculously  overpaid.  Martha's  money 
is  not  spent  on  herself.  She  eats  very 
little — and  cheese  and  tea  may  be  bought 
incredibly  cheap  and  nasty  in  Thames 
Street.  She  indulges  in  no  vanities  of 
dress.  The  frowsy  shawl  and  bonnet  are 
of  immemorial  antiquity.  Her  employers 
surmise  uncharitably  that  she  does  not 
waste  her  substance  on  soap.  Martha, 
in  fact,  wastes  nothing.  She  has  a 
money-box  secreted  in  a  drawer  amid  an 
awful  confusion  of  other  treasures.  She 
is  a  miser.  She  has  saved  and  stinted 
herself  for  years  and  years.  She  has  de- 
nied herself  not  luxuries,  for  luxuries 
have  never  even  suggested  themselves  to 

249 


The  Caretaker 

her,  but  what  other  people  would  call 
necessaries. 

On  that  far-off  visit  to  the  country 
Martha  found  and  loved  a  great-niece. 
Tilly  was,  it  must  be  confessed,  a  dreadful, 
stout,  stolid,  apple-cheeked  plebeian 
baby.  But  she  took  possession  of  Mar- 
tha's lonely  old  heart.  Martha  carried 
back  to  London  a  cheap  photograph  of 
Tilly  in  her  best  frock,  and  a  deep-seated 
resolution  concerning  Tilly  in  her  foolish 
old  soul.  When  Tilly  is  old  enough  she 
is  to  come  up  to  London  to  live,  at 
Martha's  expense,  with  Martha,  and  be 
'prenticed  to  what  Martha  speaks  of  rev- 
erentially in  the  abstract  as  "  the  dress- 
making." Martha,  like  a  true  Cockney, 
loves  and  despises  the  country,  and  is 
convinced  that  London  is  the  only  place 
in  which  to  get  on.  And  the  dressmaking 
is  such  a  genteel  employment. 

To  'prentice  Tilly  to  a  very  good  house, 
to  be  able  to  clothe  Tilly  as  her  high  posi- 
tion will  require,  to  be  able  to  support 
Tilly  elegant,  as  Martha  says,  Martha  in- 
stituted the  money-box,  and  puts  into  it 

250 


The  Caretaker 

weekly  much  more  than  she  can  afford. 
She  works  for  Tilly  with  the  dogged  per- 
sistence of  the  woman  of  one  idea.  The 
stout  earthy  child  whom  she  has  not  seen 
for  a  dozen  years  or  more  has  been  beau- 
tified, perhaps  beyond  recognition,  in  her 
fond  and  foolish  imagination.  Or  she 
thinks  that  large  red  cheeks  and  a  stolid 
gaze — admirably  caught  by  the  cheap 
photograph — are  incapable  of  improve- 
ment. Tilly's  picture  is  assigned  an 
honorable  place  by  the  side  of  a  terrible 
but  beloved  portrait  of  the  Prince  of 
Wales.  Though  Martha  is  devotedly 
attached  to  the  Royal  Family,  there  have 
been  days  on  which  the  Prince's  counte- 
nance has  been  left  thick  in  dust.  But 
Martha  always  makes  a  point  of  cleaning 
Tilly  reverentially  with  a  corner  of  her 
shawl.  She  gazes  at  the  picture  when 
she  has  performed  this  operation  with  an 
admiration  and  tenderness  in  her  dim  old 
eyes  which  are  quite  ridiculous  and  pa- 
thetic. Two  or  three  times  a  week  she 
breathes  on  the  glass  which  protects 
Tilly,  and  rubs  it  vigorously  with  a  piece 

251 


The  Caretaker 

of  a  cloth  used  indiscriminately  as  a 
duster  or  a  handkerchief. 

For  Tilly's  sake  she  refuses  to  join  a 
party  of  lady  friends  who  are  going  by 
water  to  Greenwich.  One  has  to  live  in 
Thames  Street,  perhaps,  to  know  what 
a  temptation  such  an  expedition  repre- 
sents. The  land  surveyor's  wife  sends 
Martha  a  cheap  petticoat  for  a  Christmas 
present.  It  is  beautifully  striped  in  many 
colors,  and  Martha  says,  "  It's  too  good 
for  my  likes,"  and  puts  it  tenderly  away 
in  a  drawer  for  Tilly.  For  Tilly's  sake 
she  denies  herself  sugar  in  her  tea.  For 
Tilly's  sake  she  creeps  about  the  old 
house  in  boots  so  aged  that  the  tea  mer- 
chant is  constrained  to  speak  to  her 
severely  on  her  disreputable  appearance. 
For  Tilly's  sake  she  goes  to  bed  early  to 
save  candles,  and  lies  awake  hour  after 
hour  with  her  old  thoughts  to  keep  her 
company.  For  Tilly's  sake  she  daily 
makes,  in  fact,  the  thousand  little  sacri- 
fices of  which  only  a  great  love  is  capable. 

The  tea  merchant,  exasperated  beyond 
bearing  at  last  at  her  incompetence,  tells 

252 


The  Caretaker 

her  her  services  will  be  no  longer  required. 
On  consideration  perhaps  of  her  having 
inquired  tenderly  after  his  relations  every 
morning  for  an  indefinite  number  of 
years,  he  consents  to  her  still  occupying 
the  attic  on  the  payment  of  a  modest 
rent. 

Then  Martha  seeks  some  new  employ- 
ment. Her  old  heart  sinks  when  a  week 
has  passed  and  she  has  failed  to  find  it. 
For  herself  she  can  live  on  almost  noth- 
ing. But  Tilly  is  seventeen  now,  and  is 
coming  up  to  London  next  year.  Martha 
would  rather  starve  than  take  a  penny 
from  her  money-box.  She  has  called  it 
Tilly's  money  so  long  that  she  really  be- 
lieves now  to  spend  it  would  be  robbing 
Tilly  of  her  own.  She  is  reduced  to  sell- 
ing 'Enery — with  tears.  He  fetches  a 
very,  very  small  sum,  and  Martha  has 
loved  him  as  if  he  were  a  human  creature. 
The  theological  work  presented  by  the 
Bible  Christian  minister  goes  also,  and 
Martha,  who  has  never  read  it,  cannot  see 
the  vacant  place  on  the  table  because  of 
the  mist  in  her  old  eyes. 

253 


The  Caretaker 

At  last  she  is  engaged  by  the  parish 
clergyman  to  clean  the  church.  Up  to 
this  period  Martha  has  been  a  Baptist — 
not  so  much  because  she  has  a  leaning  to- 
wards that  particular  sect,  or  any  particu- 
lar sect,  as  because  the  Baptist  chapel  is 
very  handy,  the  minister  affable,  and  the 
footstools  large,  fat,  comfortable  ones  of 
a  showy  red  baize. 

"  But  it'd  be  sooperstition  to  let  them 
'assicks  stand  in  the  way  of  my  niece," 
Martha  says  thoughtfully  to  herself.  The 
'assicks  do  not  stand  in  Tilly's  way.  In 
a  day  or  two  Martha,  with  an  optimistic 
smile  on  her  wrinkled  old  face,  may  be 
seen  providing  Ritualistic  books  of  de- 
votion to  devout  young  gentlemen  who 
have  come  to  church  to  attend  Prime. 

Then  Tilly  comes.  Martha  has  house- 
cleaned  her  room  for  Tilly's  reception. 
She  has  not,  indeed,  house-cleaned  it  very 
thoroughly,  partly  because  she  has  not 
had  time  and  is  seventy  years  old  and  a 
little  feeble,  and  paftly  because  Martha 
has  never  cleaned  anything  thoroughly, 
including  herself.     But  she  has  blown  the 

254 


The  Caretaker 

dust  off  most  things,  and  put  up  a  piece 
of  new  window  curtain.  She  has  bought  a 
shining  looking-glass  for  Tilly's  benefit, 
Martha  never  seeing  her  own  kind,  tender, 
wrinkled,  grubby  old  countenance  from 
year's  end  to  year's  end.  She  has  pro- 
vided quite  a  sumptuous  tea — with  sugar. 
She  has  made  the  bed  almost  neatly.  She 
has,  in  fact,  done  everything  that  love  can 
suggest  to  her. 

Before  she  goes  out  in  the  frowsy  bon- 
net and  ancient  shawl  to  meet  Tilly  at  the 
station  she  takes  a  last  look,  through  eyes 
proudly  and  tenderly  dim,  at  Tilly's  pict- 
ure. The  day  has  come  for  which  she  has 
been  working  for  years,  for  which  she  has 
denied  herself  gladly,  for  which  she  has 
yearned  and  prayed.  She  can  feel  her 
heart  beating  quicker  under  the  thread- 
bare shawl,  and  her  hands  tremble  a 
little. 

She  is  much  too  early  for  the  train,  and 
has  to  wait  so  long  in  the  waiting-room 
where  she  has  arranged  to  meet  Tilly  that 
she  falls  into  a  doze.  A  robust  female 
with  a  developed   figure,    a  tight  waist, 

255 


The  Caretaker 

and  a  flowery  hat  nudges  her  at  last  im- 
patiently with  a  tin  hat-box. 

"  Lor,  aunt!  "  says  Tilly,  "  what  with 
you  so  shabby,  and  snoring  so  ungenteel 
in  a  public  place,  I  'ardly  liked  to  own 
yer. 

My  dear  !  "  cries  Martha  in  a  trem- 
bling voice.  "  My  dear!  My  dear!  "  and 
she  puts  her  withered  old  arms  round  the 
girl's  neck,  and  kisses  her  and  cries  over 
her  for  happiness. 

"  What  a  take  on,  to  be  sure  !  "  says 
Tilly,  who  is  perfectly  practical.  "  Let's 
go  'ome. " 

And  they  go  home  and  begin  life  to- 
gether. 

For  a  month  Martha  is  happy.  She  is 
happy  at  least  so  far  that  she  can  watch 
the  accomplished  Tilda  reading  a  novel- 
ette and  profoundly  admire  so  much  edu- 
cation. She  puts  her  ridiculous  old  head 
on  one  side  to  look  proudly  and  fondly  at 
the  stylish  black  curls  shading  Tilly's 
rubicund  countenance.  She  ventures  to 
kiss  Tilly's  cheek  veiy  gently  when  that 
young  lady  is  snoring  profoundly  after  a 

256 


The  Caretaker 

day's  pleasure,  for  Tilly  has  not  yet 
started  "  the  dressmaking."  And  the 
premium  is  still  wrapped  up  safely  in 
dingy  newspaper  in  the  money-box. 

Martha  is  creeping  upstairs  one  night, 
weary  but  optimistic,  after  a  hard  day's 
cleaning  at  the  church,  when  a  slipshod 
infant  next  door  thrusts  a  note  into  her 
hand.  The  slipshod  infant,  who  has  re- 
ceived an  education,  reads  it  to  Martha  at 
Martha's  desire.  It  contains  only  a  few 
lines. 

Tilly  has  gone  away.  Tilly  has  eloped 
with  a  costermonger.  Married  respect- 
able at  a  registry,  she  phrases  it.  "  That's 
all,"  says  the  infant  of  education. 

That  is  all.  But  that  is  why  Martha 
falls  back  with  her  face  drawn  and  ashen 
and  her  lips  trembling.  That  is  all.  It 
is  the  end  of  those  years  of  work  and  de- 
nial and  hoping.  Yet  what  is  more  nat- 
ural than  that  Tilly  should  desire  matri- 
mony, and  try  her  blandishments  upon  a 
costermonger  who  plied  his  trade  most 
conveniently  beneath  Martha's  window  ? 
What  is  more  natural  in  this  cruel  world 
17  257 


The  Caretaker 

than  love  repaid  by  ingratitude,  and  trust- 
fulness by  deceit? 

Martha  gropes  her  way  blindly  to  the 
attic.  It  is  not  yet  so  dark  there  but  she 
can  see  distinctly  the  poor  little  improve- 
ments she  made  for  Tilly's  coming.  She 
turns  the  cheap  looking-glass  with  its  face 
to  the  wall.  It  was  meant  to  reproduce 
Tilly,  buxom  and  twenty,  and  not  Mar- 
tha, poor,  old,  ugly,  and  disappointed. 
She  catches  sight  of  Tilly's  picture  at 
four  years  old — Tilly,  stolid  enough  in- 
deed, but  little,  loving,  and  good.  And 
Martha  cries,  and  buries  her  head  in  her 
arms,  and  the  tears  mark  grimy  courses 
down  her  furrowed  cheeks. 

"  If  you  could  'a'  trusted  me,  Tilly," 
she  says.  "  If  you  would  but  'a'  trusted 
me." 

Until  this  bitter  hour  she  has  not  known 
how  Tilly  has  filled  her  life.  How  she 
has  only  lived  for  Tilly,  and  thought  and 
hoped  only  for  her.  And  Tilly  has  gone 
away,  and  Martha's  house  is  left  unto  her 
desolate. 

A   footstep   outside  startles  her.     For 

258 


The  Caretaker 

one  wild  foolish  moment  she  thinks  that 
Tilly  has  come  back — that  she  has  but 
dreamt  a  bad  dream  and  is  awake  again. 
And  she  recognizes  the  voluble  tones  of 
the  mamma  of  the  educated  infant,  and 
dries  her  tears,  not  from  pride — Martha 
has  so  little — but  from  loyalty  to  Tilda. 

Mrs.  Jones  always  have  said  that  Tilda 
was  a  bad  lot.  "  A  impudent,  brazen- 
faced thing,"  says  Mrs.  Jones,  warming 
to  the  description. 

And  Martha,  with  a  little  color  coming 
into  her  poor  white  cheeks,  knows  as  Tilly 
meant  no  harm.  And  marriages  are  made 
in  'eaven. 

She  may  have  to  acknowledge  Tilda 
erring  to  her  own  heart,  but  how  can  she 
give  her  up  to  the  merciless  judgment  of 
a  merciless  world  ? 

"  You're  a  poor-sperited  one,  that  you 
are,"  says  Mrs.  Jones,  "  and  as  likely  as 
not  you've  never  looked  to  see  if  she  'ave 
made  off  with  the  premium." 

Martha  has  not  looked.  Is  startled 
into  confessing  it.  She  has  not  thought 
of  the  premium,  so  hardly  earned.      She 

259 


The  Caretaker 

has  only  thought  that  she  has  loved  Tilda, 
and  Tilda  has  not  loved  her.  And  a  swift 
burning  color  comes  into  Martha's  cheeks, 
and  some  sudden  deadly  premonition 
creeps  to  her  heart  and  closes  coldly  upon 
it.  And  she  answers  steadily,  "  My  Tilda's 
as  honest  as  you  are." 

"  Don't  you  be  so  sure,"  says  Mrs. 
Jones  vindictively.    "  You  look  and  see." 

Perhaps  Martha  takes  some  sort  of  res- 
olution as  she  goes  heavily  to  the  drawer 
where  the  money-box  is  kept.  Or  per- 
haps no  resolution  is  necessary,  because 
her  ignorant,  loving  old  soul  is  of  its 
nature  infinitely  faithful.  Her  hands  and 
lips  are  quite  steady  now,  and  she  is  not 
afraid  of  Mrs.  Jones's  "  sperited  "  gaze. 
The  monej^'-box  is  quite  light,  and  the 
money  collected  was  chiefly  in  pence  and 
half-pence.  It  is  also  unlocked.  And 
Martha  turns  with  her  back  to  the  drawer 
and  faces  Tilda's  enemies. 

"  You  can  tell  all  as  asks,"  she  says 
in    an    old   voice  that    is  very  clear  and 

260 


The  Caretaker 

firm,  "  as  my  Tilda  is  quite  straight  and 
honest.      And   them  as  says  she  isn't — 

19  f 
les. 

"  I'll  believe  as  you  speak  true,"  says 
Mrs.  Jones.  "  If  you  don't,  well,  the 
Lord  forgive  you  !  " 

And  who  shall  say  that  He  will  not  ? 


261 


The  Parson 


The  Parson 

"  Le  monde  est  une  foule  d'isoles." 

He  lives  in  the  days  of  farmer  George. 
He  is  perhaps  fifty  years  old.  He  has  a 
jolly,  round,  red,  tanned,  weather-beaten 
face  with  shrewd  gray  eyes  under  shaggy 
eyebrows. '  He  wears  a  dress  which  is  as 
careless,  as  comfortable,  and  as  uncler- 
ical  as  may  well  be.  He  has  spurs  clink- 
ing under  his  surplice,  and  a  dozen  easy 
tumbled  pink  coats  in  his  untidy  bache- 
lor quarters  at  the  Rectory. 

The  Rectory,  an  abominable,  dull, 
damp,  moth-eaten  hole,  is  the  reward  of 
vigorous  Hebrew  at  Cambridge.  It  is 
whispered,  indeed,  that  Parson  Jack  was 
not  only  vigorous  at  Hebrew  and  at 
compelling  the  errant  undergraduate  at- 
tention with  his  great  burly  voice  and  fine 
broad  English  personality,  but  also,  says 

265 


The  Parson 

report,  at  athletics  of  every  kind.  At 
games  and  on  the  river.  At  a  rollicking 
song,  at  a  rollicking  story,  the  life  of  a 
college  breakfast  in  his  gravest  days,  and 
the  wildest  of  the  wild  in  his  wild  youth. 

It  is  certain  that  Parson  Jack  knows 
very  well  how  to  take  odds  or  lay  them 
on  any  race  or  racer  the  sporting  Squire 
of  his  parish  can  name  to  him.  It  is  whis- 
pered, indeed,  that  he  knows  the  points 
of  a  horse  a  good  deal  better  than  the 
subtleties  of  theology.  He  thinks  per- 
haps— God  bless  him,  says  the  Squire — 
that  a  good  seat,  a  brave  zest  for  a  fine 
old  English  sport,  and  the  keen,  healthy 
excitement  that  comes  with  a  fair  crisp 
morning  and  the  bay  of  the  hounds  are  in 
themselves  part  of  an  honest  virtue  and 
conducive  to  it. 

He  is  not,  it  will  be  seen,  strictly  cler- 
ical. He  has  his  notions  of  duty  indeed, 
which  are,  like  himself,  broad  and  honest. 
He  will  go  round  the  parish  after  his  late, 
untidy  bachelor  breakfast  at  the  Rectory, 
and  ask  Hodge,  in  uncommonly  forcible 
language,  which  has  never  even  occurred 

266 


The  Parson 

to  him  as  being  unorthodox,  why  he  was 
not  in  church  last  Sunday.  He  has  a 
joke  for  the  women,  and  the  jokes  sound 
better  in  his  great  jolly  tones  than  the  best 
in  another  man's,  and  a  shining  sixpence 
out  of  his  own  poorly-equipped  pockets 
for  the  children.  He  is  not,  perhaps,  very 
dignified.  The  only  advice  he  offers  is 
quite  worldly  and  material — how  to  buy  a 
horse,  and  how — God  bless  you.  Sir,  says 
Jeannie,  with  tears  in  her  country  eyes 
— to  pay  the  rent.  He  will  send  down 
the  people,  when  they  are  ill,  one  of  the 
prime  puddings  made  by  his  housekeeper, 
or  a  bottle  of  his  old  port,  which  he  takes 
to  be  a  cure,  or  at  least  a  panacea,  for 
every  ailment  under  Heaven.  He  gives 
them  no  spiritual  directions.  A  sense  of 
his  own  unworthiness  oppresses  the  most 
humble  heart  in  the  world.  When 
Hodge,  dying,  confesses  to  him  some  sin 
of  a  wicked  youth,  the  Parson  says, 
"God  forgive  us!"  including  himself  in 
that  need  for  especial  mercy.  He  has 
the  widest  charity  and  pity  for  the  faults 
of  his  people,  feeling  himself  to  be  more 

267 


Tlie  Parson 

faulty  than  all.  When  he  reads,  in  his 
great  tones,  the  Confession  in  Church,  one 
guesses  whom  he  takes  to  be  the  worst  of 
lost  sheep  and  miserable  offenders. 

He  is  unorthodox  enough  at  the  ser- 
vice. Heaven  knows.  His  Georgian  con- 
gregation are  not  indeed  particular,  and 
accept  complacently  irregularities  which 
would  cause  the  hair  of  the  faithful  of  the 
present  enlightened  generation  to  stand 
on  end.  The  Parson's  great  dog  follows 
him  always  into  church.  If  Rough  lin- 
gers, as  he  will  sometimes,  in  the  aisle, 
taking  a  simple  canine  interest  in  the  con- 
gregation, the  Parson  whistles  to  him 
with  perfect  simplicity  and  no  idea  of  ir- 
reverence to  come  into  the  Vestry,  where 
Rough  scrabbles  at  the  door  feelingly 
during  the  service.  Neither  does  the 
Parson  perceive  any  moral  wrong  in  cur- 
tailing the  Liturgy  when  the  day  is  fine, 
and  his  human  nature,  as  well  as  every 
one  else's,  is  longing  to  be  out  in  the  sun- 
shine. He  preaches  the  long  formal 
sermon  in  fashion  in  his  time,  in  loud, 
honest  tones,  and  getting  over  it  as  fast 

268 


The  Parson 

as  he  can.  He  is  not  particularly  grieved 
at  heart  to  hear  Hodge  snoring  in  the  free 
seats  during  the  discourse,  which  the 
Parson  knows  to  be  trite  and  dull  as  well 
as  anybody.  The  hideousness  of  a  church 
built  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne  does  not 
pain  his  artistic  sense  in  the  least,  nor 
does  the  excruciating  band  in  the  gallery 
jar  on  his  fine  outdoor  nerves.  When 
My  Lady  from  the  Manor,  who  is  town- 
bred  and  delicate,  complains  to  him  that 
there  are  black-beetles  in  her  pew,  he  re- 
plies, "  Crush  'em.  Madam,  crush  'em  !" 
in  his  great  voice,  and  considers  the  mat- 
ter settled.  He  gives  out  notices  in 
Church  which  are  in  no  way  connected 
with  religion.  "  The  hounds  meet  on 
Blakely  Green  on  Thursday,"  he  says  in 
a  friendly  fashion,  "  and  mind  you're  all 
in  time."  His  eccentricities,  if  indeed 
they  can  be  called  by  such  a  name  in  his 
day,  are  so  far  from  being  disliked  by  the 
people  that  they  even  seem  to  put  the 
Parson  on  a  friendly  human  footing  with 
themselves.  The  fact  that  he  finds  the 
Litany,  as  they  do,  conducive  to  slumber, 

2C9 


The   Parson 

makes  as  it  were  a  bond  of  union  between 
them.  They  are  even  pleased  when  they 
discover,  as  they  very  soon  do  from  his 
man,  that  the  Parson  finds  it  impossible 
to  rise  early,  except  for  hunting,  that  he 
is  honestly  fond  of  his  port  wine,  and 
takes  a  nap  after  dinner  in  the  pleasantest 
human  fashion. 

With  his  equals  the  Parson  is  popular 
too.  The  Squire  forgives  him  his  He- 
brew when  he  finds  that  the  books  are 
moulding  away  unread  in  the  Rectory 
library.  And  the  Parson  is  famous  for 
his  good  stories  and  his  loud  honest  sense 
of  humor.  His  very  laugh  even — a  great, 
huge,  burly,  vigorous  laugh — amuses  his 
friends.  He  is  held,  no  doubt  rightly,  to 
be  as  good  a  judge  of  port  as  any  man  in 
the  county,  and  takes  his  bottle  after  a 
hard  day's  hunting  without,  it  must  be 
said,  any  evil  result.  The  Parson  tells  his 
best  stories  indeed  after  his  wine.  If  his 
influence  on  the  party  is  certainly  not 
spiritual,  or  even  clerical,  it  has,  in  a 
coarse  age,  a  robust  cleanliness.  For  the 
Parson,   for  the  sake  of  one  woman  in  a 

270 


The  Parson 

past  of  which  he  never  speaks,  respects 
all,  and  when  he  is  at  table  the  conversa- 
tion is  at  least  decent. 

After  dinner  the  Parson — and  it  is  to 
be  feared  that  the  fact  that  many  of  his 
friends  are  not  in  a  position  to  accom- 
pany him  does  not  shock  him  at  all — goes 
upstairs  to  take  tea  with  Madam  in  her 
drawing-room.  He  sings  some  of  his 
rollicking  college  songs  to  her  accompani- 
ment. He  misses  out  such  verses  as  he 
thinks  unsuitable  for  her  hearing.  He  is 
fond  of  this  woman,  who  is  gentle  and 
good,  though  neither  beautiful  nor  young, 
with  a  quite  simple  affection.  He  likes 
to  sit  in  her  drawing-room,  with  the 
flowers  in  bowls  on  the  table,  with  the 
pretty  old  tea  things  and  silver  by  the  fire, 
with  the  harpsichord  open  and  lighted  by 
candles  in  massive  candlesticks,  with  her 
woman's  work  here  and  the  delicate  touch 
of  a  woman  everywhere.  He  is  fifty  years 
old,  a  robust  out-door  person,  who  has  no 
business  to  be  moved  by  such  things  as 
these — no  business  to  miss  them  when  he 
goes  back  to  the   Rectory  with  its  dull 


The  Parson 

furniture  and  its  masculine  hardness  and 
untidiness.  And  yet — and  yet  the  parson 
has  the  habit,  which  grows  upon  him  year- 
ly, of  lingering  a  long  while  in  Madam's 
drawing-room,  of  sitting  there  and  lean- 
ing forward  in  his  great  chair  and  looking 
deep  into  the  fire  when  she  has  gone  up- 
stairs to  see  her  children,  and  of  walking 
home  alone  presently  to  the  gloomy  old 
Rectory  with  his  hands  thrust  deep  into 
his  pockets  and  his  honest  eyes  full  of  an 
unwonted  thought. 

He  has  there  many  lonely  and  unoccu- 
pied hours.  In  his  day  it  is  not  expected 
of  him  to  form  guilds,  clothing  clubs,  and 
temperance  societies.  He  would  laugh 
his  jolly  laugh  at  the  idea  of  a  sporting 
bachelor,  such  as  he  is,  lecturing  on  the 
rearing  of  infants  at  a  mothers'  meeting. 
Neither  has  he  any  need  to  write  sermons, 
having  a  fusty  batch  of  the  very  dullest 
discourses  (from  which  he  draws  a  couple 
haphazard  every  Sunday)  lying  ready  to 
hand  in  a  cupboard'  mixed  up  with  hunt- 
ing-boots and  riding-whips.  He  has  long 
given  up  his  Hebraic  studies.      What  is 

272 


The  Parson 

the  use  of  Hebrew,  after  all,  when  one's 
companions  are  agricultural  laborers,  or 
sporting  squires  scarcely  more  enlight- 
ened ?  He  is  indolent,  too,  perhaps. 
Has  been  an  indolent  man  all  his  life,  he 
thinks  humbly.  He  draws  out  his  great 
tobacco-pouch  from  his  pocket  with  a 
sort  of  sigh  when  he  has  dined  solitarily 
of  an  evening  and  come  into  his  study  to 
drink  his  bottle  there  alone.  He  has  been 
used  to  be  much  alone  always.  He  has 
never  known  the  care  or  plague  of  a  wo- 
man. And  has  nothing  now  to  keep  him 
company  but  a  memory. 

For  sometimes,  even  to  him,  as  he  sits 
there  with  the  shadows  creeping  coldly 
into  the  unclosed  room,  and  the  wine 
pushed  forward  untasted  on  the  table  be- 
fore him,  a  figure  comes  back  from  Hades 
and  stands  for  a  moment  beside  him. 
Angela!  They  call  her  Angela  though 
not  yet  at  all  an  angel,  but  that  dearer 
thing — a  woman.  The  faint  perfume  of 
her  hair  reaches  him  as  he  sits  with  his 
old  head  fallen  upon  his  hands.  He  has 
strongly  upon  him  the  feeling  that  if  he 
is  273 


The  Parson 

could  look  up — and  as  strongly  that  he 
cannot — he  would  see  her  in  her  white 
frock,  with  her  curls  falling  on  her  neck 
and  the  faint  color  in  her  sweet  saint's 
face.  She  died.  He  is  glad  that  she  died 
before  the  world  touched  her.  And  won- 
ders only  vaguely  if,  had  she  lived,  he 
would  have  been  something  better  than 
the  idle,  easy,  material,  self-indulgent, 
weather-beaten  old  fellow  he  finds  him- 
self to-night.  His  simple  and  faithful 
heart  is  filled  for  the  moment  with  God 
knows  what  prayers,  penitence,  tender- 
ness, remorse,  and  longing.  But  before 
the  night  has  crept  in  upon  him  and  shut 
out  from  sight  the  untidy  room  with  its 
sporting  pictures  on  the  wall  and  books 
rotten  from  long  disuse,  like  a  dead  ambi- 
tion, he  is  asleep  with  his  gray  head  fallen 
forward  on  the  arms  of  his  stained  pink 
coat,  and  some  shadow  of  the  dream  in  his 
heart  upon  his  rough  old  face. 

The  Parson  lives  to  a  great  age.  Not 
so  great  indeed  that  the  honest  tenor  of 
his  way  is  disturbed  by  awakened  bishops 
and  an  enlightened  laity.     He  is  to  the 

274 


The  Parson 

end  what  he  was  in  the  beginning.  To 
the  last  he  shortens  his  services  at  his  own 
honest  discretion,  and  plays  the  cornet  in 
Churoh  with  perfect  simplicity  and  no 
previous  acquaintance  with  that  instru- 
ment when  the  band  takes  a  holiday. 
To  the  last  he  will  laugh  his  jolly  laugh 
over  a  bottle  with  the  Squire,  rap  out 
an  oath  from  long  habit,  and  tell  a  good 
story  as  no  one  but  the  Parson  can.  To 
the  last  he  has  the  most  honest  compas- 
sion for  brute  and  human  suffering,  and 
the  finest  reverence  and  affection  for  a 
good  woman  or  a  little  child.  To  the 
last  he  confesses  himself,  from  a  heart 
which  is  surely  the  humblest  and  tender- 
est  in  the  world,  to  be  the  greatest  of 
sinners.  Has  to  the  last,  if  one  will,  the 
error,  ignorance,  and  neglect  of  his  time. 
Is  to  the  last  the  straightest  rider,  the 
keenest  sportsman,  the  kindliest,  sim- 
plest, and  most  unorthodox  of  his  cloth. 
Is  to  the  last  brave,  cheery,  manly.  And 
to  the  last  alone — with  one  faithful  and 
abiding  memory. 

To  whose  ashes  be  peace. 

275 


The  Child 


The  Child 


"  Plus  on  aime,  plus  on  souffre." 

Barbara  is  six  years  old.  She  has 
stout  cheeks,  stout  legs,  and  a  temper. 
She  has  a  sister  called  Pollie,  who  is  sweet 
and  seven,  and  a  brother  in  button-up 
shoes  and  a  frock.  Pollie  and  Bab  and 
Tom  spend  nearly  all  their  days  in  the 
nursery.  Mamma  has  a  taste  for  society, 
and  has  not  much  time  to  play  maternity. 

"  Children  are  a  great  deal  happier  left 
to  themselves,"  she  says  comfortably. 
Mamma  is  constantly  announcing  such 
convenient  axioms,  and  believing  them. 

The  children  are  indeed  very  happy  by 
themselves.  Bab  particularly,  perhaps, 
because  Bab  has  thoughts,  and  lives, 
with  the  dolls,  in  a  far  world  of  her  own. 
She  has,  perhaps,  five-and-twenty  chil- 
dren, who  are  dressed,  taught,  and  amused, 

279 


The  Child 

put  to  bed,  and  nursed  through  dire  dis- 
ease. Matilda  is  the  eldest  of  them. 
Matilda  has  black  hair,  large,  beautiful, 
staring  eyes,  and  the  loveliest  vern:iilion 
complexion.  She  accompanies  Bab  every- 
where. When  Papa  takes  the  children  a 
trip  in  his  yacht  Bab  refuses,  with  much 
temper  and  firmness,  to  go  without  her 
child.  Bab,  lying  prone  upon  the  deck, 
when  the  chops  of  the  Channel  have  be- 
come too  much  for  her  inner  woman, 
holds  Matilda's  kid  paw  tightly  in  her 
own  moist  hand.  She  feels  as  if  she  were 
dying,  but  even  in  death  she  will  not 
desert  Matilda.  Matilda's  perambulator 
has  always  to  accompany  the  party.  It 
is  considered  by  Bab  too  precious  to  be 
packed  up,  and  if  she  loses  sight  of  it  she 
roars. 

Bab  has  indeed  a  fine  pair  of  lungs,  to 
which  it  must  be  confessed  she  gives 
plenty  of  exercise.  The  potency  of  her 
emotions  will  not  allow  her  to  weep  gentle 
tears  like  Pollie.  A  rising  color  in  Bab's 
fat  face  and  the  slow  opening  of  Bab's 
particularly   competent    mouth    are    per- 

280 


The  Child 

fectly  reliable  signals  to  Mamma  to  ring 
the  bell  and  have  Bab  forcibly  ejected  from 
the  room  by  a  muscular  nursery  maid. 

In  the  nursery  the  children  play  at 
House.  The  enterprising  Pollie  is  gener- 
ally abroad  catering  for  the  family.  Tom 
goes  out  hunting  on  the  rocking-horse. 
But  Bab  sits  at  home  surrounded  by  her 
children.  Sometimes  they  have  to  be 
corrected,  but  more  often  to  be  hushed 
and  loved  on  Bab's  maternal  breast. 
Anyhow,  they  always  need  her.  Her 
sense  of  responsibility  is  perhaps,  in  its 
childish  way,  as  great  as  that  of  many 
real  mothers.  She  has  at  least  so  far  the 
true  maternal  feeling  that,  though  she  has 
so  many  children,  she  loves  each  as  singly 
and  devotedly  as  if  she  had  but  that  one 
alone. 

On  Sundays  the  children  play  Church. 
Pollie,  correct  and  officious  in  a  night- 
gown, is  the  clergyman.  Tom  plays  the 
organ  on  a  penny  whistle  in  a  handy  cup- 
board. Bab  and  the  dolls  form  the  con- 
gregation. At  a  certain  signal  Bab  causes 
Matilda   to    faint   with  a  scream.      And 

281 


The  Child 

Tom  removes  the  prostrate  body  with 
great  zest  and  enjoyment.  Tom  and  PolHe 
indeed  sometimes  forget  the  solemnity  of 
the  occasion  and  laugh.  But  Bab  is  always 
serious  and  tranquil.  She  is  a  mother. 
She  has  to  set  an  example  to  the  chil- 
dren. 

"  Bab  thinks  dolls  is  real,"  lisps  Tom. 

"  No,  I  don't,"  says  Bab,  her  face  get- 
ting very  red,  and  holding  Matilda  very 
tight  indeed.  But  it  is  a  story.  They 
are  real — to  her. 

Bab  reads.  She  reads  all  the  books 
she  can  find,  whether  she  understands 
them  or  not.  She  reproduces  the  long 
words  she  encounters  in  her  conversation 
afterwards  with  a  perfectly  original  pro- 
nunciation and  adapted  to  a  meaning  of 
her  own. 

Mamma  says,  "  What  a  queer  child  !  " 
— a  trifle  scornfully.  And  Bab  goes  back 
to  her  book-world — so  much  simpler  and 
easier  than  the  real  one — with  that  dispar- 
aging accent  lingering  somehow  about 
her  small  heart. 

Pollie  is  a  much  more  successful  child 
282 


The  Child 

than  Bab.  Bab  knows  that  Mamma  thinks 
so.  Bab  thinks  so  herself,  Pollie  is 
very  courageous,  for  instance.  Pollie 
climbs  trees  in  the  garden — quite  high 
trees.  She  puts  her  heroic  counte- 
nance through  the  branches  and  calls  to 
Bab,  fat  and  timid,  beneath:  "You're 
afraid." 

Bab  says,  "  No,  I'm  not.  I  don't  want 
to  climb  trees.  It's  stupid,"  with  quite 
unnecessary  vehemence.  But  in  Bab's 
heart  her  greatest  ambition  is  to  be  like 
Pollie  in  everything.  Bab  has  indeed  for 
PoUieone  of  those  blind,  faithful  devotions 
which  seldom  survive  childhood.  Bab  is 
not  angry  with  Pollie  for  being  so  much 
prettier  than  she  is  herself.  Bab  thinks 
that  Pollie,  dressed  in  white  muslin  and 
a  pink  sash  to  go  out  to  a  party,  is  just 
like  an  angel.  She  smoothes  Pollie's 
white  silk  legs  with  a  small,  reverent  paw. 
She  loves  Pollie,  and  loves  to  see  her 
beautiful. 

Mamma  likes  Pollie  best.  Who  could 
help  it  ?  It  is  at  least  a  preference  against 
which  Bab  herself  makes  no  appeal.     And 

283 


The  Child 

if  there  is  a  little  wistfulness  in  her  fat 
face  when  Mamma  kisses  Pollie  and  looks 
at  her  with  admiring  eyes  before  she  starts 
for  the  party,  it  is  a  wistfulness  in  which 
there  is  no  shadow  of  bitterness  or  disloy- 
alty to  Pollie. 

Bab  sometimes  goes  to  parties,  too. 
Not  very  often,  because  Bab  is  not  a 
party  child,  nor  likely  to  do  Mamma  any 
particular  credit.  Bab  outsits  all  the 
other  guests  at  tea.  She  is  calmly  con- 
suming her  tenth  piece  of  bread  and  but- 
ter in  the  dining-room  long  after  the  other 
children  have  retired  to  play  games  in  the 
hall.  When  the  lady  of  the  house,  affa- 
ble and  gracious,  inquires  if  Bab  has  en- 
joyed herself,  Bab  replies  with  grave 
simplicity,  "  A  little,  thank  you,  but  not 
very  much." 

Bab  is,  indeed,  fatally  honest.  When 
she  is  sent  down  to  the  drawing-room  to 
be  looked  at  by  the  afternoon  visitors 
Bab  surveys  those  visitors  with  so  calm 
and  direct  a  gaze  as  to  sometimes  quite 
embarrass  them.  No  wonder  Pollie  is  the 
show  child.     Bab  is  quite  plain  and  fat 

284 


The  Child 

and  simple.  She  hugs  Matilda,  and 
speaks  the  truth. 

Mamma  is  never  unkind  to  Bab.  Bab 
has  every  opportunity  of  indulging  a  fine 
appetite  for  bread  and  butter.  She  is  suit- 
ably clothed.  When  Mamma  says  Bab 
has  a  passionate  temper  and  an  ob- 
stinate will,  Mamma  is  perfectly  right. 
And  Mamma  is  so  constituted  that  she 
cannot  love — particularly — a  child  who 
gives  her  trouble,  and  upon  whose  appear- 
ance and  manners  she  is  never  compli- 
mented. 

It  happens,  therefore,  that  Bab's  small 
life  has  many  dark  moments.  She  does 
not  understand  exactly  why  Mamma  is 
not  fond  of  her.  For  herself,  it  is  to  the 
ugliest  and  forlornest  of  her  children  that 
her  deepest  tenderness  goes  out.  A  faded 
infant  with  a  squint,  and  pale  hair  mostly 
pulled  out  by  Tom,  appeals  by  its  very 
misfortunes  to  Bab's  sweetest  love  and 
compassion. 

When  Mamma  invites  Pollie  to  go  with 
her  to  evening  church,  Bab,  standing  un- 
noticed in  the  backgroud,   bursts  into  a 

285 


The  Child 

terrible  howl.  It  is  not  that  Bab  particu- 
larly wants  to  go  to  church,  which  has 
always  seemed  to  her  a  dull  function  of 
unnecessary  length.  But  she  wants  to  be 
asked  to  go.  The  background  is  such  a 
cold  place  in  which  to  spend  one's  poor 
little  life. 

Bab  strokes  Mamma's  delicate  hand, 
not  the  less  lovingly  because  her  own 
little  paw  is  grubby  with  recent  excava- 
tions in  the  garden.  And  Mamma  says 
sharply : 

"  Really,  Bab,  what  have  I  told  you 
about  your  hands  ?  Go  away  directly, 
child  !" 

Bab  forgives — is  there  any  forgiveness 
like  a  child's  ? — a  thousand  sharp  speeches 
and  hasty  words.  But  she  does  not  for- 
get, or  repeat  her  small  overtures  of  love 
and  devotion. 

Mamma  teaches  Bab  music — for  a  week. 
She  smacks  Bab's  fat  stupid  fingers  when 
Bab,  whose  genius  does  not  lie  in  the 
direction  of  music,  is  more  exasperating 
than  usual.  She  says  hard  things,  too, 
and  Bab  carries  them  away  to  a  dull  lum- 

286 


The  Child 

ber-room  where  she  is  used  to  fight  out 
her  small  tragedies  alone.  The  lumber- 
room  has  a  very  narrow  window,  affording 
just  a  glimpse  of  the  sky.  It  has  a  very 
old  carpet,  whose  faded  pattern  Bab  has 
often  studied  dully  through  hot  tears. 
Bab  sits  on  a  trunk,  and  rocks  the  forlorn 
doll  to  her  heart.  She  does  not  know 
what  is  the  matter  with  her  life.  Her 
griefs  do  not,  indeed,  last  long.  But 
while  they  last  they  are  very  bitter.  And 
Tom's  littl-e  button-up  shoes  patter  up 
the  staircase,  and  Tom,  standing  at  the 
door  in  his  insufficient  frock,  says — 

"  Don't  cry,  Bab.  There's  jam  for  tea, 
and  Nurse  is  going  to  take  us  to  see  the 
postman's  funeral." 

The  prospect  of  jam  or  a  funeral  cheers 
Bab  considerably.  But  she  is  too  little 
to  remember,  when  troubles  come  again 
the  next  day,  or  the  day  after  that,  how 
soon  and  how  simply  they  are  consoled. 

It  happens  that  Pollie  and  Bab  go  to 
stay  one  summer  with  Mamma's  sister-in- 
law.  In-Law  is  not  quite  so  young  or 
so  pretty  as  Mamma  herself.     Moreover, 

287 


The  Child 

Mamma  has  married  In-Law's  favorite 
brother.  It  will  therefore  be  readily 
understood  that  there  is  no  love  lost  be- 
tween the  ladies. 

In-Law  takes  to  Bab  very  kindly.  Bab, 
indeed,  though  not  pretty  like  Pollie,  has 
a  red,  healthful  countenance  and  a  com- 
fortable person  not  unprepossessing. 
And  In-Law  has  discovered  that  Bab  is 
not  Mamma's  favorite.  Bab,  lying  awake 
in  her  cot  the  first  night  and  contemplat- 
ing life  through  its  green  bars,  overhears 
In-Law,  who  has  come  to  kiss  Bab  in  bed, 
say  to  a  lady  friend  who  is  with  her — 

"  Dreadful  injustice,  you  know.  Lena's 
favoritism  makes  one  quite  dislike  her. 
This  child — nothing,  I  assure  you,  and 
the  other  brought  forward  and  indulged  in 
every  way." 

Bab  does  not  know  what  this  speech 
means  at  the  time;  later  she  finds  out. 
In-Law  is  always  giving  Bab  kisses  and 
presents.  Bab  transfers  the  giant's  share 
of  each  to  Pollie. 

"  Auntie  likes  you  best,  Bab,"  says 
Pollie,  a  little  cloud  on  her  pretty  face. 

288 


The  Child 

"  Does  she  ? "  says  Bab  wistfully,  with 
a  kind  of  apology  to  Pollie  in  her  small 
voice. 

No  one,  it  seems,  has  ever  liked  Bab 
best  before.  Bab  feels  a  little  disturbed 
that  it  should  be  so  now.  But  In-Law's 
preference  remains  manifest.  In-Law 
asks  Bub  all  about  her  home.  They  are 
taking  a  walk  together,  and  Bab  has  been 
very  conversational  indeed. 

*'  Is  Pollie  kind  ? "  Pollie  is  very  kind 
indeed.  Pollie  is  clever  too.  She  climbs 
trees  and  goes  to  a  dancing  class. 

"  Whom  does  Mamma  like  best — you 
or  Pollie?"  Bab's  fat  face  grows  a  little 
serious.  Mamma  likes  Pollie  best.  So 
does  everybody.  Pollie  is  pretty,  and 
her  hair  curls.  "  Mine  is  rats'  tails," 
adds  Bab  regretfully. 

"  Do  you  like  Mamma,  Bab?"  Bab's 
red  cheeks  grow  redder. 

"  I  like  Mamma,"  she  answers  stur- 
dily. But  after  that,  for  no  reason  that 
she  knows,  she  likes  In-Law  less. 

One  day,  in  the  garden,  In-Law  calls 
Bab  to  her.  Pollie  has  gone  out  for  a 
19  2S9 


The  Child 

walk  with  Nurse,  and  Bab  has  been  amus- 
ing herself  with  Matilda. 

I've  had  a  letter  from  Mamma,"  says 
In-Law;  "  she  wants  Pollie  home.  She 
does  not  want  you.  What  do  you  say  to 
that,  Bab  ?" 

Bab  does  not  say  anything,  because  she 
cannot.  There  is  a  large  lump  in  her 
throat,  and  a  great  slow  tear  falls  on 
Matilda's  staring  face. 

"  Mamma  is  cross  to  you,  isn't  she, 
Bab  ?"  says  In-Law  insinuatingly. 

A  second  tear  falls  on  Matilda,  but  Bab 
says,  "  No,  she  isn't,"  with  a  red,  pas- 
sionate face,  and  pushes  away  In-Law's 
arm  which  is  round  her. 

"  But  you  would  rather  stay  here,  Bab  ? 
Mamma  only  loves  Pollie,  and  is  cross  to 
you,  you  know  she  is,  and " 

And  Bab,  with  a  substantial  boot,  de- 
signed expressly  for  muddy  country 
lanes,  inflicts  a  fierce  kick  upon  In-Law's 
ankle,  and  bursts  into  a  roar. 

In-Law  is  laid  up  for  three  weeks.  Bab 
has  disgraced  herself  for  ever.  She  is 
whipped,    removed    to   the   nursery,    and 

290 


The  Child 

allowed  no  jam.  She  is  severely  repri- 
manded several  times  a  day  by  Nurse  for 
her  wicked  conduct  to  her  kind  aunt. 
Perhaps  Bab  has  a  private  consolation  in 
the  depths  of  her  own  loyal  soul.  She 
thrives,  anyhow,  amazingly  on  jamless 
bread  and  butter.  She  croons  Matilda 
contentedly  to  sleep.  She  is  a  little 
quieter  than  usual,  but  not  unhappy. 
Then  she  is  taken  home,  with  Pollie. 
Mamma  is  in  the  hall,  and  Bab  runs  up 
to  her.  Bab's  stout  face  is  quite  red 
with  pleasure.  She  is  less  afraid  of 
Mamma  than  she  has  been  for  a  long 
time.  Perhaps  there  is  a  sense  of  faith 
and  loyalty  in  her  heart  which  makes 
her  bold.  She  knows  In-Law  has  told 
Mamma  the  story.  But  then  In-Law's 
version  has  been  carefully  revised. 

"  Bab,  what  a  naughty  girl  you  have 
been  !  "  says  Mamma.  "  I'm  ashamed  of 
you." 

Mamma  is  kissing  Pollie  as  Bab  falls 
back  blind  with  a  sudden  rush  of  tears. 
Pollie  and  the  fuss  of  the  arrival  of  lug- 
gage and  nurses  keep  Mamma's  attention. 

2gi 


The  Child 

And  Bab  stumbles  up  unnoticed  with 
heavy  steps  to  the  old  lumber-room.  She 
has  not  even  the  forlorn  doll  to  clasp  to 
her  heart.  But  she  has  come  perhaps  to 
a  grief  in  which  even  the  dearest  of  her 
make-believe  children  could  not  console 
her.  She  has  been  true,  has  lied  to  keep 
faith,  and  her  reward  has  missed  her. 
She  has  hurt  In-Law — who  has,  after  all, 
been  kind,  and  given  her  many  sweets 
and  kisses — for  Mamma,  who  is  only 
angry  with  her  after  all.  Bab  wipes  away 
heavy  tears  with  her  black  paw  until  her 
round  face  has  dismal  streaks  on  it,  and 
is  swollen  and  red.  She  traces  blindly 
the  worn  pattern  on  the  carpet  with  a  wet 
forefinger.  Her  small  figure  is  shaken 
by  long-drawn  sobs.  Perhaps  her  grief  is 
very  much  like  a  grown-up  grief,  after  all, 
only  she  has  not  the  reason  and  experi- 
ence of  age  to  help  her  in  it.  She  has 
found  out — too  early — that  the  world  is 
hard,  and  that  love  given  does  not  mean 
love  returned.  And  she  sobs  hot  miser- 
able sobs  until  she  is  tired  out.  Though 
every  one  else    has  forgotten   her,  some 

292 


The  Child 

tender  Providence  remembers  her  still, 
for  when  Nurse  comes  to  fetch  her  to 
bed  she  is  already  asleep  in  the  darkness, 
with  stained  cheeks,  tumbled  hair,  and 
heavy  breathing. 

Who  shall  wonder  that  faith  and  love 
such  as  Bab's  so  seldom  survive  child- 
hood ?  And  yet  there  are  some  small 
loyal  hearts  in  whom  grown-up  wisdom 
and  prudence  cannot  destroy  those  better 
things  which  are  revealed  unto  babes. 

Perhaps  Bab  has  such  a  heart  as  this. 
And  she  is  no  longer  a  child. 


293 


The  Bad   Penny 


The  Bad   Penny 

' '  On  pardonne  tant  que  Ton  aime. " 

His  parents,  denizens  of  pompous  and 
prosperous  Bloomsbury,  decree  him  for 
Eton  from  his  cradle.  Merchant  Tay- 
lors' was  good  enough  for  his  father,  who 
has  been  a  business  man  all  his  life,  is 
still  redolent  of  the  City,  from  which  he 
has  retired,  honest,  sober,  and  in  middle 
life.  But  Dick  must  go  to  Eton.  Of 
course,  says  the  mother.  What  is  the  use 
of  having  money  if  one  doesn't  spend  it 
on  Dick  ?  So  he  goes  through  a  course 
of  governesses,  tutors,  and  preparatory 
schools — a  varied  course,  because  none  of 
them  will  keep  him  more  than  three 
months  at  the  most.  It  is  not  so  much 
that  he  is  idle,  though  he  is  very  idle;  it 
is  not  so  much  that  he  is  stupid,  for  he 
has  some  cunning  amid  his  dulness;  but 

297 


The  Bad  Penny 

he  is  bad — that  is  what  one  of  his  masters 
says  of  him.  Bloomsbury  Square  has 
never  hked  that  master — always  knew 
there  was  something  fishy  about  that 
man.  Wlien  Mrs.  Bloomsbury  hears  that 
he  has  eloped  with  a  housemaid,  that  is 
just  exactly  what  she  would  have  expected 
of  him — so  unjust,  and  so  prejudiced 
against  Dick.  The  Penny  is  one  of  those 
infinitely-to-be-pitied  people  who  are 
always  exciting  prejudice  in  others. 
There  is  a  prejudice  against  him  at  Eton 
— a  dreadful  prejudice,  which  finally  grows 
so  strong  that  the  authorities  decide  that 
the  only  way  to  remove  it  is  to  remove 
him.      He  is  therefore  removed. 

He  comes  back  to  Bloomsbury  Square 
with  a  bluster.  Eton,  he  says,  is  a 
beastly  hole — not  fit  for  a  gentleman. 
His  mother  tries  to  be  fair,  to  hear 
both  sides  of  the  case,  to  believe  that 
Dick  has — in  some  very  minor  degree, 
of  course — erred  as  well  as  his  masters; 
but  she  cannot.  It  is  to  be  thought 
that  she  is  as  just  as  most  women,  but 
to   believe   anything   against    her  boy   is 

29S 


The  Bad  Penny 

not  to  be  expected  of  her — it  is  impos- 
sible. 

Dick  is  removed  to  a  private  tutor's. 
His  father  says  that  private  coaching  is 
the  very  thing  for  a  young  man — beats 
Eton  hollow.  When  Dick's  letters  arrive 
— they  are  letters  which,  in  point  of  spell- 
ing and  composition,  would  disgrace  a 
kitchen-maid — his  face  reddens  with  pride. 
He  puts  them  all  away  together  in  a  desk 
where  he  keeps  other  sacred  possessions. 

One  fine  morning  Dick  turns  up  unex- 
pectedly in  Bloomsbury  Square.  The 
tutor,  he  finds,  is  such  a  beastly  cad ;  he 
has  therefore  renounced  him.  From  a 
letter  which  arrives  next  morning  from  the 
tutor  it  appears  that  the  renunciation  is 
mutual.  There  is  a  garbled  story  of  a 
flirtation  with  a  shopgirl ;  but  it  is  very 
garbled,  and,  of  course,  entirely  incor- 
rect. Dick  says  that  he  never  saw  such  a 
liar  as  that  coach — enough  to  corrupt  any 
fellow's  morals.  Therefore,  of  course,  it 
is  only  right  and  proper  that  Dick  should 
leave  him.  Some  young  men  do  not 
mind    to    what    influences    they    subject 

299 


The  Bad  Penny 

themselves — not  so  the  Penny.  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Bloomsbury  are  quite  hurt  and  an- 
noyed when  their  son-in-law,  an  outspoken 
person,  condoles  with  them,  and  is  sorry 
to  hear  that  the  young  cub  has  been  up 
to  his  tricks  again. 

The  Penny  manages  to  scrape  through 
an  Entrance  Examination,  and  goes  to 
Cambridge. 

"  Not  every  young  man,  mind  you, 
can  pass  those  Entrance  Exams,  nowa- 
days," says  Papa,  sipping  his  glass  of 
port  with  honest  pride  in  the  Penny's  ex- 
traordinary prowess.  "  They  tell  me," 
Dick  says  himself,  "  that  it's  a  very  differ- 
ent thing  to  what  it  was  twenty  years 
ago.  The  competition  is  enormous — by 
Gad,  sir,  enormous  !  " 

Mr.  Jones,  also  of  Bloomsbury  Square, 
quite  believes  you.  Neither  he  nor  the 
proud  father  has  ever  been  to  the  Univer- 
sity himself;  but  they  send  their  sons, 
and  know  as  much  about  it,  mind  you,  as 
any  one.  The  mother  colors  with  pleas- 
ure at  the  other  end  of  the  table.  It  is 
indeed  a  privilege,  knowing   how  dread- 

300 


The  Bad  Penny 

fully  idle  some  young  men  are,  to  have  a 
son  like  Dick.  Bloomsbury  Square  dis- 
covers, by  degrees,  that  the  privilege  is  a 
very  expensive  one.  It  is  so  expensive, 
in  fact,  that  they  find  out  it  is  very  much 
more  healthy,  as  well  as  a  great  deal 
more  enjoyable,  to  walk  instead  of  drive 
everywhere ;  so  they  put  down  the  car- 
riage. "  Only  don't  tell  Dick,"  says  the 
mother.  "  It  would  hurt  his  feelings  so 
dreadfully  to  think  we  were  going  with- 
out any  little  comfort  on  his  account." 

So  Dick's  feelings  are  not  harrowed, 
and  when  he  comes  down  for  the  first 
vacation  a  carriage  is  jobbed.  A  young 
man  finds  a  carriage  so  useful,  and  Dick 
would  naturally  not  like  to  be  without 
one.  Very  likely  he  will  not  notice  the 
difference  between  this  one  and  our  own. 
Perhaps  he  does  not  notice  the  difference, 
or  perhaps  his  tact  is  so  divine  and  beau- 
tiful that  he  does  notice  the  difference 
and  says  nothing.  In  appearance  he  has 
grown  larger,  stouter,  and  redder — in 
fact,  has  become  so  fine-looking.  "  I 
dare  say  you  remember,  cook,"  says  the 

301 


The  Bad  Penny 

mother  to  that  elderly  domestic,  "  what 
a  beautiful  baby  he  was  ! — such  a  dear 
sturdy  little  fellow!  I  must  confess  I 
should  have  been  a  little  disappointed  if 
he  had  grown  up  pale  and  puny  and 
weakly-looking,  as  one  sees  so  many 
young  men  nowadays." 

In  this  contingency  cook  would  have 
been  disappointed  also.  Now  Jane  says 
Mr.  Dick  is  too  red-like  for  her,  but  cook 
always  did  hold  with  a  good  fresh  color. 
Cook  has  a  good  fresh  color  herself — not 
unlike  Mr.  Dick's,  in  fact,  only  plebeian, 
of  course,  very  plebeian. 

Mr.  Bloomsbury  is  anxious  to  know 
what  books  Dick  has  been  studying;  but, 
naturally,  after  a  hard  term's  work,  the 
Penny  does  not  wish  to  be  very  commu- 
nicative on  the  subject. 

"Oh!  Herodotus,  and  Livy,  and  all 
those  chaps,"  he  says,  in  a  voice  which 
might  sound  to  persons  who  do  not  know 
his  idiosyncrasies  a  trifle  surly. 

Papa  stretches  up,  with  great  inconven- 
ience to  himself,  for  the  Livy.  He  cuts 
the  leaves  with  a  sort  of  reverence.       He 

302 


The  Bad  Penny 

cannot  read  a  word  of  it  himself.  Educa- 
tion was  not  so  much  thought  of  in  his 
day.  But  it's  a  fine  thing,  my  boy,  a  fine 
thing,  and  I  wish  I  had  had  your  advan- 
tages. The  Penny  expresses  a  wish  that 
the  advantages  may  be  blowed — only  he 
uses  a  word  much  more  emphatic  than 
"  blowed."  Papa  replaces  the  Livy,  with 
the  same  inconvenience  to  himself  with 
which  he  got  it  down,  and  with  something 
which,  if  he  had  not  everything  to  be 
thankful  for,  might  almost  be  taken  for  a 
sigh. 

In  due  time  Dick  returns  to  Cambridge. 
His  bills  are  heavier  than  ever  the  next 
term ;  they  are  so  heavy  that  the  mother 
begins  to  be  afraid  that  the  butler  must 
be  dull  without  any  companion  of  his  own 
sex,  now  that  the  coachman  has  gone. 
Mr.  Bloomsbury  therefore  tells  the  butler 
that  he  cannot  justify  himself  in  keeping 
him — the  situation  must  be  such  a  terri- 
bly lonely  one. 

"  Lor!  sir,"  says  Thomson,  with  a  tear 
and  a  twinkle  in  his  old  eye  at  the  same 
time,  "  don't  you  be  atroublin'  yourself 

303 


The  Bad  Penny 

to  find  no  reasons  for  givin'  me  notice. 
Thim  colleges  has  ruined  many  of  us 
afore  now" — with  which  remark  Thom- 
son retires  to  the  pantry  and  wipes  his 
eyes  on  the  plate-leather. 

Six  months  later  the  Penny  turns  up 
at  Bloomsbury  Square  unexpectedly,  in 
the  middle  of  a  term  and  a  hansom.  The 
very  small  amount  of  gilding  with  which 
he  was  gilt  when  he  left  the  family  mint 
is  nearly  all  worn  off.  He  looks  as  if  he 
drank — only  looks,  of  course.  Many 
other  perfectly  innocent  people  do  the 
same,  and  very  awkward  it  is  for  them. 
He  has,  he  says,  "  come  down  " ;  this  is, 
indeed,  perfectly  obvious.  It  presently 
becomes  obvious  that  he  has  been  com- 
pelled to  "  come  down."  To  the  old  man 
there  is  a  horror  in  the  very  idea  of  such 
a  thing.  It  takes  a  great  deal  of  explain- 
ing— and  explaining  things  is  Dick's /orU 
— to  make  him  feel  easy  again.  Lots  of 
fellows  do  it — it's  nothing.  There's  Lord 
Noodle  and  the  Marquis  of  Foolington 
who  have — well,  left  with  me.  They 
were  up  to  larks,  if  you  like;  but  in  my 

304 


The  Bad  Fenny 

case  it's  been  a  most  beastly  swindle — 
that's  what  it  is,  a  beastly  swindle.  (The 
Penny's  language  has  long  been  noted  for 
its  richness  and  elegance.)  Why,  any 
of  the  chaps'U  tell  you  it's  a  swindle. 
None  of  the  "chaps"  step  forward  to  do 
this,  however.  Fortunately,  Bloomsbury 
Square  does  not  need  them.  Dick  is 
believed  on  his  own  assertion — by  two 
people  only. 

The  Penny  now  thinks  he  would  like  to 
farm  in  Canada.  He  says  very  frequently 
that  he  is  blowed  if  he  can't  make  some- 
thing out  of  that.  So  he  has  a  fine  outfit 
— flannel  underclothing  sewed  with  tears, 
love,  and  devotion — and  a  fine  sum  of 
money  to  put  into  the  business  he  has 
heard  of  out  there. 

After  he  has  gone — only  just  after — 
Cambridge  bills  and,  alas!  promissory 
notes  of  very  extensive  promise  indeed 
begin  to  come  in  to  Bloomsbury  Square; 
and  when  they  once  begin  it  is  a  long 
time  before  they  stop.  It  is  about  this 
period  that  the  mother  discovers  that  the 
air  of  Bloomsbury  is  very  relaxing — is  not 


J^D 


The  Bad  Penny 

sure,  indeed,  that  it  is  a  wholesome  place 
to  hve  in ;  hears  that  many  doctors  con- 
sider the  neighborhood  of  Peckham  excel- 
lent for  the  rheumatism  from  which  she 
suffers — when  convenient.  And  then  this 
house  is  too  large.  Two  old  people  like 
you  and  me  feel  quite  lost  in  a  wilderness 
of  a  place  like  this.  Now,  in  a  dear  com- 
fortable little  box So  they  go  to  a 

dear  comfortable  little  box  in  the  refresh- 
ing neighborhood  of  Albert  Road,  Peck- 
ham — just  cook  and  themselves — so  nice 
and  homely.  But  the  old  man  can  look 
the  world  in  the  face.  Dick's  Cambridge 
expenses — he  speaks  of  them  thus — have 
been  quite  comfortably  settled. 

Dick  does  not  write  very  often — in- 
deed, has  not  written  at  all.  He  is  busy 
with  his  farm.  Farming  is  a  very  fine 
thing  for  young  men;  an  active,  open- 
air  life  makes  something  better  of  a  young 
fellow  than  your  stuffy  offices  and  your 
ledgers  and  your  account  books.  "  Make 
your  boy  a  farmer,  sir,  as  I  have  made 
mine." 

And  the  farmer  turns   up  in  a  year  at 

506 


The  Bad  Penny 

Albert  Road,  Peckham,  in  a  condition 
which  the  brother-in-law,  full  of  unchari- 
tableness,  characterizes  as  disgraceful. 
The  Penny  looks  more  as  if  he  drank  than 
ever — which  is  unfortunate,  but  of  course 
unavoidable.  He  is  ill-dressed;  he  is 
more  surly  in  manner.  If  he  were  not 
her  son — her  only  son — the  mother,  who 
has  gentle  blood  in  her  perhaps,  and  that 
refinement  which  comes  of  a  pure  mind 
and  a  tender  heart,  might  shudder  to 
touch  anything  so  coarse  and  unclean. 
But  she  kisses  and  cries  over  him  like  a 
fool,  before  she  has  heard  his  story,  which 
may  be  forgiven  her,  and  afterwards,  which 
cannot.  The  farm  was  a  beastly  swindle, 
of  course;  the  money  which  was  sunk  in 
it  was  lost,  equally  of  course;  but  if  his 
father  can  get  him — say  some  post  of  re- 
sponsibility in  a  bank,  or  something  like 
that — he  is  blowed  (again)  if  he  doesn't 
make  a  success.  He  is  also  blowed  when 
his  father  tells  him  something — not  all, 
not  half,  for  fear  of  hurting  his  feelings — - 
of  his  Cambridge  debts.  He  is  of  opinion 
his   father  has  been  swindled ;  a  beastly 

307 


The  Bad  Penny 

swindle,  indeed,  as  usual.  His  father 
looks  in  the  fire  meditatively.  He  says 
nothing;  there  is,  in  fact,  nothing  to  be 
said.  The  Penny  thinks  that,  upon  his 
soul,  you've  got  wretched  diggings  here. 
The  father  says  quietly  they  are  the  best 
he  can  now  afford.  It  is  his  only  re- 
proach, and  that  does  not  penetrate  the 
target,  the  target  being  remarkably  thick, 
tough,  and  invulnerable. 

The  position  of  trust  is,  through  influ- 
ence, procured.  For  three  weeks  Albert 
Road,  Peckham,  is  supremely  happy. 
Everything  is  going  on  so  well.  And 
then  a  story  is  whispered  in  the  father's 
ear  which,  if  it  gets  abroad,  means  Dick's 
ruin.  It  is  not  a  pretty  stoiy.  The 
mother  does  not  know  it.  It  is  not  kept 
from  her  so  much  because  it  would  wound 
her,  for  she  would  not  believe  it,  but  be- 
cause it  is  not  fit,  as  a  story,  for  her 
hearing.  The  old  man  denies  it  furi- 
ously. His  son!  Pick!  It  is  proved  to 
him  beyond  reasonable  doubt;  and  he 
denies  it  again,  like  Peter,  with  an  oath. 
The  evidence  is  damning;  and  he  turns 

3o3 


The  Bad  Penny 

and  damns   his  informant.     The  scandal 
is,  however,  hushed  up.     Dick  mentions 
it  in  a  note  to  his  father.     It  was  another 
fellow  with  an  unfortunate    resemblance 
to  himself.     An  old  story;  but  not  so  old 
that  the  father  will  not  believe  it  from  the 
lips  of  the  son.     After  this  Dick's  letters 
come  fairly  regularly;  such  nice  letters — 
not,    perhaps,  very  educated   in   style  or 
very   correct   in   spelling,    nor   even   very 
filial  in  expression  ;  but  all  saying  the  same 
thing,  that  he  is  getting  on  famously,  and 
asking  for  the  loan  of  five  or  ten  pounds 
in  the    postscript.       The   mother   thinks 
that  Dick  has  really  found  his  vocation. 
As  the  weeks  go  by  she  becomes  sure  of 
it ;  gets  more  sure,  and  feels  sometimes  a 
little  angry  that  her  husband  is  so  quiet, 
moody,  and  unresponsive.      He  does  not 
believe  that  ugly  story.      God  help  him  ! 
no,  but  it   haunts  him  ;    or  perhaps  the 
shadow  of   an   evil   to  come  hang^s  over 
him.      He  looks  back  on  this  time,  long 
after,  wondering  which  it  was,  and  cannot 
determine. 

Then   Dick  turns    up   again — at    night 
309 


The  Bad  Penny 

this  time,  and  without  a  bluster.  He 
looks  sober;  and  looks,  too,  as  if  he  were 
haunted  by  a  ghost.  It  is  the  old  story, 
but  with  a  new  and  engaging  sequel. 
Everything  a  beastly  swindle,  as  usual. 
The  manager  a  cad,  and  Dick  accused  of 
forgery.  The  mother  goes  white  to  her 
lips,  then  a  flaming  scarlet.  Her  boy  ac- 
cused of  that  !  Her  boy — the  soul  of 
honor  !  The  soul  of  honor  has  some- 
thing in  his  appearance  to-night  sugges- 
tive of  a  cur  expecting  a  whipping.  This 
appearance  is  not  lessened  when  he  says 
that  he  must  get  out  of  this  damned 
country  before  to-morow. 

"  Get  out  of  the  country  !  "  shouts  the 
old  man,  with  a  heavy  fist  on  the  table 
which  makes  the  glasses  ring.  "  My 
God  !  if  you're  an  honest  man  you  shall 
face  the  world  and  give  it  the  lie." 

The  son  falls  back  a  little,  scared  at  his 
father's  gleaming  eyes  and  ashen  face  ; 
and  the  mother,  in  that  old,  fond,  foolish 
way,  puts  her  arms  round  her  boy  and 
says  he  must  fight  it  out  because  it  will 
all  come  right.     God  takes  care  of  such 

310 


The  Bad  Penny 

things  ;  and  the  guilty  are  found  out  and 
punished. 

''That's  it,'"  says  her  boy,  thrusting 
her  away ;  ' '  that  is  why  Fin  going !  ' ' 

The  Penny  does  not  turn  up  any  more 
— at  least,  not  in  England.  It  is  to  be 
presumed  that  abroad  he  turns  up  pretty 
constantly  anywhere  where  there  is  fool- 
ishness and  money. 

Albert  Road,  Peckham,  has  its  tragedy, 
though  it  will  be  allowed  that  the  locality 
is  sordid  rather  than  tragic.  His  son-in- 
law  thinks  that  his  misfortunes  have  made 
the  old  man  very  much  more  of  a  gentle- 
man than  he  used  to  be.  Very  likely  it 
is  true.  Misfortunes  often  have  a  refin- 
ing effect.  The  self-satisfaction  of  re- 
spectability must  be  considerably  damped 
when  one  reflects  that  one  is  the  father 
of  a  forger.  The  pride  and  pomposity 
of  Bloomsbury  must  be  extinguished  for 
ever  when  one  knows  of  one's  son  that 
forgery  is  not  the  most  dishonorable  of 
his  failings.  As  for  the  mother,  when 
her  belief  in  her  boy  went,  so  went  hope 
also.      Father  and  mother  have  both  been 


The  Bad  Penny 

fools,  but  she  has  been  the  greater  fool  of 
the  two.  Both,  every  one  says  so,  have 
done  their  best  to  ruin  the  boy — have 
ruined  him.  They  might  have  seen  what 
he  was  years  before,  but  they  shut  their 
eyes.  They  might  have  learned  from  their 
friends,  long  ago,  that  he  was  a  scamp, 
but  they  would  not  hear.  It  is  very  sad 
for  them,  of  course,  and  every  one  has  the 
greatest  sympathy  with  them ;  but  it  is 
their  own  fault — entirely  their  own  fault. 
It  may  be;  but  if  it  is,  then  surely  the 
tragedies  we  make  for  ourselves  are  grim- 
mer than  any  which  fate  makes  for  us. 


312 


The  Sp 


inster 


The  Spinster 


"  II  arrive   quelquefois  des  accidents  dans  la  vie  d'oii 
il  faut  etre  un  peu  fou  pour  se  bien  tirer." 

She  enjoys  a  limited  income,  invested 
for  her  by  an  officious  relative  in  a  Dock 
Company,  The  income  is  very  limited, 
and  the  Spinster  spends  quite  half  of  it 
in  journeys  to  and  from  town  to  look  and 
see  how  the  bonds  are  getting  on  in  a 
Safe  Deposit. 

She  lives  with  her  cousins.  Their  gen- 
erosity is  most  beautiful.  Quite  an  ex- 
ample to  mankind.  She  pays  them 
Nothing,  absolutely  Nothing.  Gener- 
osity, in  the  feminine,  always  mentions 
this,  quite  casually,  when  she  pays  calls. 

"  John  and  I  are  delighted  to  be  able 
to  give  her  a  home,"  she  says. 

The  stress  upon  the  *'  give  "  is  so  slight 
that  it  might  almost  be  absent  altogether. 

315 


The  Spinster 

Tabitha  does  nothing  in  return  for  this 

superhuman    kindness — that     is,     almost 

nothing.     Full  of  tact  and  thoughtfulness, 

indeed,    Generosity  allows    her   to    do   a 

few  little  things  about    the   house,   that 

she    may   not    feel    so    much    under    an 

obligation    to    dear    John.       Tabitha    is 

not    at    all    accomplished.       She   belongs 

to  a  period  when  a  smattering  of  Italian, 

a  knowledge  of  the  use  of  the  globes,  and 

a  running  spidery  handwriting  declared  a 

young  lady  educated.       But    Generosity 

overlooks     her     deficiencies    and    kindly 

allows  her  to  help  the  children  with  their 

lessons  and  superintend  their  practising. 

The  eldest  Generosity  girl  bounces  about 

a  good  deal  on  the  music-stool  and  plays 

wrons  notes   maliciously.       She    doesn't 

really  think,  she  says,  that  it's  the  least 

use  Tab  hearing  her  practise.       Tab  has 

not   an   atom   of  style.       Which    is  very 

true  ;  Tab's  only  recommendation  being 

an    infinite  store  of  patience  and    sweet 

temper.    The  Eldest  further  complains  of 

Tab   that  she  is  so  awfully  prim.      The 

Eldest  suffers  a  good  deal  from  this  prim- 

316 


The  Spinster 

ness,  and  is  infinitely  to  be  pitied.  How 
annoying  it  is  to  know,  for  instance,  that 
Tab  takes  two  hours  getting  up  every 
morning,  and  adheres  to  an  hour's  hair- 
brushing  every  night  as  if  it  were  a  reli- 
gion !  Generosity  herself  never  heard 
anything  so  ludicrous  as  the  way  in  which 
Tab  clings  to  the  traditions  of  her  youth. 
Because  at  Cheltenham — Tab's  papa  was 
an  effete  old  General — breakfast  was  at 
half-past  eight  and  the  family  put  on 
their  clean  clothing  on  Sunday,  Tab  can 
scarcely  believe  in  the  morality  of  per- 
sons breakfasting  at  nine  and  donning 
clean  garments  on  Saturday.  She  does 
not  indeed  express  these  outrageous  opin- 
ions, Generosity  having  given  her  to  un- 
derstand that  she  cannot  air  her  ridiculous 
notions  there. 

Her  bedroom  is  a  perfect  portrait  gal- 
lery of  ancestors.  She  keeps  an  especial 
silk  pocket-handkerchief  to  dust  them 
with,  which  is  used  for  no  other  purpose. 
The  Eldest  says  she  never  saw  anything 
so  hideous  as  the  old  things,  and  would 
like    to    know    v»-hy    people's    ancestors 


The  Spinster 

always  have  great  beaks  of  noses  hke 
that;  the  Eldest's  own  nose  being  an  en- 
gaging Httle  snub.  Tab's  family  are  hke 
the  nightly  hair-brushing  to  her — a  reli- 
gion. No  matter  how  disagreeable  or  how 
impecunious,  alive  or  dead,  provided  they 
are  relatives  Tab  is  ready  to  take  them  to 
her  heart.  When  the  ne'er-do-weels  are 
shipped  off  in  despair  by  their  friends  to 
Buenos  Ayres  or  California,  she  writes 
them  long  letters  full  of  affection — and 
enclosing  a  Post-ofifice  Order.  It  is 
thought  that  the  relatives  do  not  always 
read  the  letters.  But  there  is  no  occasion 
on  record  on  which  they  have  not  taken 
kindly  to  the  Order. 

Generosity,  with  the  highest  of  motives, 
of  course,  does  her  best  to  shake  Tab's 
belief  in  her  family. 

Generosity  says,  "  Isn't  it  absurd  to 
see  how  proud  the  Joneses  are  of  their 
uncle  because  he  is  a  General  ?  Any  one 
can  be  a  General.  Isn't  it  ridiculous. 
Tab?" 

A  little  color  rises  in  Tab's  w^orn  face. 
It    is  to  be   feared  that  she  is  afraid  of 

31S 


The  Spinster 

Generosity's  back-handed  httle  stabs, 
and  has  not  the  courage  to  make  a  spirited 
reply.     She  says  feebly,  "  Oh,  very  !  " 

But  her  heart  is  as  true  as  steel  to  that 
effete  old  papa. 

Generosity  is  extremely  kind  to  Tab, 
of  course.  Tab  has  all  her  meals  with  the 
family.  And  it  is  by  the  merest  chance 
that  the  legs  of  chickens  and  the  jamless 
tarts  always  fall  to  her  share.  Tab  her- 
self always  prefers  the  unpopular  pud- 
ding.    Tab  is  lamentably  weak. 

She  goes  errands  for  Generosity  twenty 
times  perhaps  in  an  afternoon.  Gener- 
osity's maligners  say  she  invents  the  er- 
rands to  annoy  Tab.  But  even  if  that 
were  true — which  of  course  it  is  not — 
Generosity's  aim  is  not  attained.  At  the 
twentieth  errand  there  is  a  little  more 
color  than  usual  in  Tab's  face.  But  that 
is  all.  And  that  may  easily  come  from 
the  exercise  she  has  taken.  Generosity 
always  prefaces  her  requests  with  "  As 
you  have  nothing  to  do.  Tab." 

And  Tab,  of  course,  really  has  nothing 
to  do.       Only  the  little  things  about  the 

319 


The  Spinster 

house  to  which  other  people  are  superior, 
or  can't  waste  their  time  over,  or  find,  by 
reason  of  their  higher  intelh'gence  and 
education,  too  much  bother. 

Some  one  once  said  Tab  was  a  maid-of- 
all-work  without  wages.  But  that  must 
have  been  some  one  who  knew  nothing  of 
the  immense  kindnesses  she  receives  from 
Generosity  and  John.  Generosity,  cer- 
tainly, often  reminds  Tab,  in  a  perfectly 
indirect  and  ladylike  manner,  how  fortu- 
nate she  is. 

I  hear,"  she  says,  "  the  Mortons  are 
going  to  have  a  cousin  to  live  with  them. 
Of  course  she  is  to  pay — two  pounds  a 
week,  I  believe.  Very  kind  of  them  to 
have  her  even  on  those  terms,  don't  you 
think?  I  believe  some  one  suggested  not 
letting  her  pay  anything.  But,  as  Mr. 
Morton  says,  that  would  be  Quixotic 
generosity  indeed." 

Tab  says,  "  Yes,  indeed,"  meekly. 

Her  intelligence  is  not  of  a  high  order. 
Perhaps  she  does  not  apply  these  stories 
as  she  ought.  But  Generosity,  thought- 
ful as  ever,  takes  Tab's  want  of  sharpness 

320 


The  Spinster 

into  consideration,  and  generally  makos 
her  meaning  perfectly  clear. 

If  Tab  had  any  proper  pride  she  would 
go.  But  she  does  not  go.  Perhaps  she 
can't  afford  the  luxury  of  proper  pride. 
Her  dividends  from  the  Dock  Company 
are  ridiculously  small.  Perhaps,  also, 
with  a  divine  charity  and  an  exquisite 
foolishness,  she  believes  that  Generosity 
does  not  mean  to  be  unkind.  She  bears, 
therefore,  with  an  utter  tameness  and 
want  of  spirit,  the  thousand  little  daily 
insults  which  her  benefactress  heaps  on  her. 
It  is  possible  that  if  she  rose  and  fought 
Generosity  that  lady  might  like  her  and 
treat  her  better.  But  Tab's  is  the  creed 
of  meekness,  forbearance,  and  gentleness. 
And  she  goes  on  toiling  for  the  children, 
nursing  them  when  they  are  ill,  and  doing 
odd  jobs  for  Generosity  with  a  patience 
and  good  temper  wholly  reprehensible. 
One  day  comes  the  news  that  the  Dock 
Company  has  stopped  payment. 

"  All  the  sensible  shareholders,"  says 
Generosity,  a  trifle  pointedly,  perhaps, 
"  will,  of  course,  get  some  of  their  money 

21  -',21 


The  Spinster 

back.  But  people  who  are  so  wealthy 
that  they  can  sit  at  home  and  do  noth- 
ing to  recover  it  will,  I  suppose,  be 
swindled." 

Tab  is  understood  to  say  that  the  Com- 
pany must  already  be  in  great  trouble, 
and  she  could  not  bear  to  give  them 
extra  worry  on  her  account. 

"  My  dear  Tab,"  says  Generosity,  with 
considerable  sharpness,  "  how  can  you  be 
so  excessively  idiotic  ?" 

There  is,  alas  !  much  truth  in  Gener- 
osity's unvarnished  words.  Tab  is  a  per- 
fect godsend  to  all  the  swindling  persons 
and  companies  she  encounters.  She  be- 
lieves what  they  say,  and  follows  their 
advice  with  a  certain  obstinacy  which  is 
vastly  irritating.  She  is,  therefore,  re- 
duced through  the  Dock  Company  to  an 
annual  income  of  twelve  pounds.  And 
when  she  receives  that  it  is  with  fear  and 
trembling,  lest  she  has  taken  from  the 
poor  creatures  what  they  can  ill  afTord  to 
pay  her. 

About  this  time  the  Eldest  comes  out. 
She  is  not  especially  pretty.     But  she   is 

322 


The  Spinster 

audacious,  which  perhaps  does  just  as 
well.  Generosity  is  very  fond  of  her,  of 
course.  Cannot  bear  the  idea  of  ever  beine 
separated  from  her — equally  of  course. 
But,  knowing  that  a  girl  is  happier  mar- 
ried, with  beautiful  self-sacrifice  Generosity 
sets  about  accomplishing  this  desirable 
end.  Papa  brings  people  home  to  dinner. 
Papa  always  enjoyed  the  society  of  young 
men.  Once  he  brings  home  a  veteran 
from  the  War  Office.  The  veteran  is  not 
less  than  fifty.  Still,  he  is  a  wonderfully 
young-looking  man;  and,  quite  casually 
of  course,  at  an  afternoon  call  Generosity 
finds  out  from  a  friend  that  he  is  really 
very  comfortably  off.  By  the  merest 
chance,  when  he  dines  with  them,  the 
Eldest  has  on  her  prettiest  dress  and  her 
most  astonishing  manners. 

The  War  Office  looks  at  her  attentively 
through  his  eyeglass.  He  has  not  seen 
much  of  feminine  society  lately.  In  his 
young  days — though  he  is,  of  course,  by 
no  means  o/d — feminine  society  was  per- 
haps less  obtrusive.  There  can  be  no 
doubt,    from    the    way    he    studies    the 

323 


The  Spinster 

Eldest,  that  he   is  immensely  captivated 
by  her  frankness,  dash,  and  originality. 

Tab  is  even  quieter  than  usual  during 
his  visits.  When  he  addresses  her  she  is 
fluttered  and  agitated,  and  answers  him 
with  much  perturbation,  and,  it  is  to  be 
feared,  not  much  sense. 

He  addresses  her.  Generosity  thinks, 
unnecessarily  often.  Perhaps  he  thinks 
she  is  a  visitor  ;  or  perhaps  that  she  pays. 
So  Generosity  mentions  with  the  greatest 
delicacy  of  expression,  and,  as  usual, 
quite  casually,  that  dear  Tab  is  perfectly 
dependent  upon  us.  The  War  Oflfice 
puts  up  his  eyeglass  and  looks  at  Gener- 
osity a  little  fixedly. 

Poor  thing,"  he  says,  "  poor  thing." 

Generosity  can't  quite  understand  his 
tone.  But  after  all,  it  is  not  worth 
troubling  about. 

One  evening  Generosity  comes  to  Tab's 
bedroom  to  have  a  chat  with  her.  She  is 
quite  condescending  and  good-tempered 
and  pleasant. 

"  We  shall  have  to  part  with  dear 
Bertha  soon,  I  fear,"  she  says. 

324 


The  Spinster 

Tab  says  "  Why  ?  "  in  an  odd  voice. 

"Why!"  echoes  Generosity,  impa- 
tiently; **  I  should  have  thought  even  you 
would  have  seen  how  devoted  he  is  to 
her." 

Tab  says  "  Yes,"  feebly,  and  does  not 
raise  her  foolish  old  face. 

"  I  am  perfectly  certain  of  it,"  con- 
tinues Generosity. 

Tab  bends  a  little  lower  over  her  fine 
darning,  and  says  nothing. 

And  Generosity,  aggravated  at  her 
unresponsiveness,  observes,  "  And  very 
glad  I  am  of  it.  I  always  consider  to  be 
unmarried  is  in  some  degree  a  slur  upon  a 
woman's  character." 

With  this  Parthian  shot  she  retires. 

While  Tab  is  singing  that  night  in  a 
ridiculous  old  voice,  which  always  breaks 
on  the  top  notes,  the  War  Office  bends  to 
turn  a  page  and  says  something  to  her 
through  the  song.  After  that  Tab's  qua- 
vers and  trills  are  more  ridiculous  than 
.ever;  and  when  she  takes  down  her  music 
her  primly  mittened  hand  shakes  like  a 
leaf.      Generosity  is   particularly  caustic 

325 


The  Spinster 

that  evening,  and  Tab's  answers  are  wider 
of  the  mark  than  usual;  so  much  so  that 
the  Eldest  says  to  the  War  Office  that 
she  really  believes  Tab  is  in  love  with 
some  one.  She  has  been  so  truly  idiotic 
lately;  so  frightfully  sentimental,  you 
know. 

The  War  Ofifice  says  "  Indeed  !  "  and 
looks  at  the  Eldest  through  his  eyeglass, 
as  usual,  in  a  sort  of  mild  surprise. 

That  evening  he  has  an  interview  with 
Generosity  and  John.  Generosity's  sur- 
prise is  not  so  mild,  nor  her  indignation ; 
and  she  is  constrained  to  tell  Tab  that 
she  has  behaved  like  a  viper. 

The  War  Office  and  Tab  are  believed 
to  be  supremely  happy;  so  frightfully 
sentimental,  you  know.  Generosity 
after  a  time  consents  to  visit  them.  As 
they  have  a  delightful  house  for  the  girls 
to  stay  in,  and  see  a  great  deal  of  nice 
society  (masculine),  she  makes  herself 
very  affable  and  affectionate.  The  War 
Office  is  occasionally  a  little  rude  to  her, 
and  continues  to  stare  at  her  through  his 
eyeglass  in  an  extraordinary  manner;  but 

326 


The  Spinster 

Tab,  full  of  gratitude  for  all  the  kindness 
she  has  received,  is  boundlessly  tender, 
loving,  and  kind. 

But  then  Tab  was  always  a  fool. 


327 


The  New  Woman 


The  New   Woman 

"  L'esprit  de  la  plupart  des  femmes  sort  plus  a  for- 
tifier leur  folic  que  leur  raison." 

She  is  young,  of  course.  She  looks 
older  than  she  really  is.  And  she  calls 
herself  a  woman.  Her  mother  is  con- 
tent to  be  called  a  lady,  and  is  naturally 
of  small  account.  Novissima's  chief 
characteristic  is  her  unbounded  self-satis- 
faction. 

She  dresses  simply  in  close-fitting  gar- 
ments, technically  known  as  tailor-made. 
She  wears  her  elbows  well  away  from  her 
side.  It  has  been  hinted  that  this  habit 
serves  to  diminish  the  apparent  size  of  the 
waist.  This  may  be  so.  Men  do  not 
always  understand  such  things.  It  cer- 
tainly adds  to  a  somewhat  aggressive  air 
of  independence  which   finds  its  birth  in 

331 


The  New  Woman 

the  length  of  her  stride.  Novissima 
strides  in  (from  the  hip)  where  men  and 
angels  fear  to  tread. 

In  the  evening  simplicity  again  marks 
her  dress.  Always  close-fitting — always 
manly  and  wholly  simple.  Very  little 
jewelry,  and  close-fitting  hair.  Which 
description  is  perhaps  not  technical.  Her 
hands  are  steady  and  somewhat  en  dvidejice. 
Her  attitudes  are  strong  and  independent, 
indicative  of  a  self-reliant  spirit. 

With  mild  young  men  she  is  apt  to  be 
crushing.  She  directs  her  conversation 
and  her  glance  above  their  heads.  She 
has  a  way  of  throwing  scraps  of  talk  to 
them — crumbs  from  a  well-stored  intel- 
lectual table — in  return  for  their  mild 
platitudes. 

"  Pictures — no,  I  do  not  care  about 
pictures,"  she  says.  "  They  are  all  so 
pretty  nowadays." 

.  She  has  a  way  of  talking  of  noted  men 
by  their  surnames  tout  court,  indicative  of 
a  familiarity  with  them  not  enjoyed  by 
her  hearer.  She  has  a  certain  number  of 
celebrities  whom  she  marks  out  for  spe- 

332 


The  New  Woman 

cial  distinction — obscurity  being  usually- 
one  of  their  merits.  ' 

Prettiness  is  one  of  her  pet  aversions. 
Novissima  is,  by  the  way,  not  pretty  her- 
self. She  is  white.  Pink  girls  call  her 
sallow.  She  has  a  long  face,  with  a  dis- 
contented mouth,  and  a  nose  indicative  of 
intelligence,  and  too  large  for  feminine 
beauty  as  understood  by  men.  Her 
equanimity,  like  her  complexion,  is  unas- 
sailable. One  cannot  make  her  blush. 
It  is  the  other  way  round. 

In  conversation  she  criticises  men  and 
books  freely.  The  military  man  is  the 
object  of  her  deepest  scorn.  His  intellect, 
she  tells  one,  is  terribly  restricted.  He 
never  reads — Reads,  that  is,  with  a  cap- 
ital. For  curates  she  has  a  sneaking 
fondness — a  feminine  weakness  too  deeply 
ingrained  to  be  stamped  out  in  one  gen- 
eration of  advancement. 

Literary  men  she  tolerates.  They  have 
probably  read  some  of  the  books  selected 
out  of  the  ruck  for  her  approval.  But 
even  to  these  she  talks  with  an  air  sug- 
gestive of  the  fact  that  she  could  tell  them 

333 


The  New  Woman 

a  thing  or  two  if  she  took   the  trouble. 
Which  no  doubt  she  could. 

Novissima's  mother  is  wholly  and 
meekly  under  Novissima's  steady  thumb. 
That  respectable  lady's  attitude  is  best 
described  as  speechless.  If  she  opens 
her  mouth,  Novissima  closes  it  for  her 
with  a  tolerant  laugh  or  a  reference  to 
some  fictional  character  with  whom  the 
elder  lady  is  fortunately  unacquainted. 

"  Oh,  Mother  !"  she  will  say,  if  that 
relative  is  mentioned.  "  Yes;  but  she  is 
hopelessly  behind  the  times,  you  know." 

That  settles  Novissima's  mother.  As 
for  her  father — a  pleasant,  square-built 
man,  who  is  a  little  deaf — he  is  not  either 
of  much  account.  Novissima  is  kind  to 
him  as  an  animal  ignorant  of  its  own 
strength,  requiring  management.  She 
describes  him  as  prim,  and  takes  good 
care,  in  her  jaunty  way,  that  no  delete- 
rious fiction  comes  beneath  his  gaze. 

He  would  not  understand  it,  poor  old 
thing  !  "  she  explains. 

And  she  is  quite  right. 

Young  Calamus,  the  critic,  has  had  a 

534 


The  New  Woman 

better  education  than  Novissima's  father. 
He  knows  half  a  dozen  countries,  their 
language  and  their  literature.  And  he 
does  not  understand  Novissima's  fiction. 

The  world  is  apt  to  take  Novissima  at 
her  own  valuation.  When  she  makes  a 
statement — and  statements  are  her  strong 
point — half  the  people  in  the  room  know 
better,  but  make  the  mistake  of  believing 
that  they  must  be  wrong  because  she  is  so 
positive.  The  other  half  know  better 
also,  but  are  too  wise  or  too  lazy  to  argue. 

While  on  a  visit  at  a  great  country  house 
Novissima  meets  young  Calamus,  of 
whom  she  has  spoken  with  an  off-hand 
familiarity  for  years.  The  genial  hostess, 
who  knows  Novissima's  standpoint,  sends 
young  Calamus  down  to  dinner  with  her. 
He  is  clever  enough  for  anybody,  reflects 
my  lady.  And  Novissima,  who  is  de- 
lighted, is  more  than  usually  off-hand  for 
the  sake  of  his  vanity.  Calamus,  as  it 
happens,  is  perfectly  indifferent  as  to 
what  she  may  be  thinking  of  him. 

He  is  good-natured,  and  entirely  free 
from  self-consciousness.     He  is  the  real 

335 


The  New  Woman 

thing,  and  not  the  young  man  who  is 
going  to  do  something  some  day.  He 
has  begun  doing  it  already.  And  there 
is  a  look  in  his  keen,  fair  face  which  sug- 
gests that  he  intends  going  on. 

Novissima's  alertness  of  mind  attracts 
him.  Being  a  man,  he  is  not  above  the 
influence  of  a  trim  figure  and  a  pair  of 
dark  eyes.  This  is  a  study,  and  an  en- 
tirely pleasant  one,  for  Calamus  is  about 
to  begin  a  new  novel.  He  thinks  that 
Novissima  will  do  well  for  a  side  char- 
acter, which  is  precisely  that  for  which 
she  serves  in  daily  life.  She  is  not  like 
the  rest.  But  it  is  the  rest  that  men  fall 
in  love  with  and  marry. 

Novissima  has  for  the  moment  forced 
herself  to  the  front  of  the  stage;  but  in  a 
few  years  she  will  only  be  a  side  char- 
acter. Calamus  knows  this.  He  remem- 
bers the  grim  verdict  of  Dr.  Kudos,  his 
junior  dean  at  Cambridge. 

"  Modern  young  woman  !  Yes;  inter- 
esting development  of  cheap  education  ; 
but  she  proves  nothing." 

Which  is  the  worst  of  science.    It  looks 

336 


The  New  Woman 

upon  us  all  as  specimens,  and  expects  us 
to  prove  something. 

Novissima  is  pleased  to  approve  of  my 
lady's  judgment  in  sending  her  down  to 
dinner  with  Calamus.  She  feels  that  the 
other  girls  are  a  long  way  below  his  men- 
tal level — that  they  are  wholly  unfitted  to 
manufacture  conversation  of  a  quality  cal- 
culated to  suit  his  literary  taste. 

Calamus  happens  to  be  rather  a  simple- 
minded  young  man.  He  has  been  every- 
where. He  has  seen  most  things,  and 
nothing,seems  to  have  touched  a  certain 
strong  purity  of  thought  which  he  probably 
acquired  in  the  nursery.  Men  are  thus. 
They  carry  heavier  moral  armor.  Out- 
ward things  affect  them  little.  Novis- 
sima, on  the  other  hand,  is  a  little  the 
worse  for  her  reading. 

She  thinks  she  knows  the  style  of  talk 
that  will  suit  him,  and  she  is  apparently 
wronsf.  For  Calamus  stares  about  him 
with  speculative  gray  eyes.  His  replies 
are  wholly  commonplace  and  som.ewhat 
frivolous.  Novissima  is  intensely  earnest, 
and,  in  her  desire  to  show  him  t^lie  depth 
22  337 


The  New  Woman 

of  her  knowledge,  is  not  always  dis- 
creet. 

She  talks  of  the  future  of  women,  of 
coming  generations  and  woman's  influ- 
ence thereon. 

"  They  had  better  busy  themselves  with 
the  beginning  of  the  future  generation," 
says  Calamus,  in  his  half-listening  way. 

"  How  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  Children,"  explains  Calamus  in  a 
single  word. 

Novissima  mentions  the  names  of  one 
or  two  foreign  authors  not  usually  dis- 
cussed in  polite  society  in  their  own 
country,  and  Calamus  frowns.  She  ap- 
proaches one  or  two  topics  which  he  re- 
fuses to  talk  about  with  a  simple  bluntness. 

He  is  hungry,  having  been  among  the 
turnips  all  day.  He  has  no  intention  of 
treating  Novissima  to  any  of  those  de- 
lightfully original  ideas  which  he  sells  to 
a  foolish  public  at  so  much  a  line. 

During  the  whole  visit  Novissima  and 
Calamus  are  considerably  thrown  together. 
Gossips  say  that  she  runs  after  him.  He 
is  superficially  shallow,  and  refuses  to  be 

333 


The  New  Woman 

deep.  She  is  superficially  deep,  and  be- 
trays her  shallowness  at  every  turn.  He 
remembers  Dr.  Kudos,  and  makes  him- 
self very  agreeable.  She  is  only  a  side 
character.     She  proves  nothing. 

Then  Calamus  packs  up  his  bag  and 
goes  back  to  town.  There  he  presently 
marries  Edith,  according  to  a  long-stand- 
ing arrangement  kept  strictly  to  them- 
selves. 

Novissima  is  rather  shocked.  She 
feels,  and  says,  that  it  is  a  pity.  Edith  is 
a  tall  girl  with  motherly  eyes  and  a  clear 
laugh.  She  has  no  notion  how  clever 
Calamus  is,  and  would  probably  care  as 
much  for  him  if  he  were  a  fool. 

Novissima  says  that  Mr.  Calamus  has 
simply  thrown  away  his  chance  of  becom- 
ing a  great  man.  She  says  it,  moreover, 
with  all  her  customary  assurance,  from  the 
high  standpoint  of  critical  disapproval 
that  is  hers.  And  Calamus  proceeds  to 
turn  out  the  best  work  of  his  lifetime, 
while  Edith  busies  herself  with  mere 
household  matters,  and  a  clear  laugh  over 
a  cradle. 

339 


The  New  Woman 

There  is  something  wrong  somewhere. 
It  cannot,  of  course,  be  Novissima,  for 
she  is  so  perfectly  sure  of  herself.  Pos- 
sibly it  is  Calamus  who  is  wrong.  But 
he  is  quite  happy,  and  Edith  is  the  same. 

It  is  only  Novissima  who  is  not  con- 
tent. Dr.  Kudos  was  right.  She  proves 
nothing.  She  has  tried  to  prove  that 
woman's  mission  is  something  higher 
than  the  bearing  of  children  and  bringing 
them  up.     And  she  has  failed. 


340 


The  Farmer 


The  Farmer 

"Quand  rhomme  commence  a  raisonner  il  cesse  de 
sentir." 

He  lives  and  has  lived  all  his  life,  as 
his  fathers  before  him,  in  an  old  farm- 
house beautiful  with  rare  carvings,  sub- 
stantial, comfortable,  and  honest. 

The  Farmer  is  himself  substantial, 
honest,  and  hot-tempered.  "  A  peppery- 
old  chap,  you  know,"  says  his  son,  with 
a  filial  candor  quite  modern  and  disre- 
spectful. 

The  Farmer  indeed  justifies  such  a  de- 
scription to  perfection. 

There  is  perhaps  no  more  soft-hearted, 
impetuous,  obstinate,  wrong-headed  old 
fellow  in  the  county. 

He  has  been  in  the  habit  of  swearing 
all  his  life  quite  freely  at  everybody.  At 
his  son,  for  his  fine  gentlemanly  airs  and 

343 


The  Farmer 

his  fine  gentlemanly  appearance.  At 
his  wife,  who  is  blue-eyed  and  somewhat 
overpowered  by  a  perfectly  good-tem- 
pered stoutness.  At  his  servants.  At 
his  farm-laborers. 

Lor  !  he  do  cuss,  bless  'im  !"  says 
one  of  them.  Perhaps  the  other  people 
who  have  to  deal  with  him  regard  him  in 
a  like  tolerant  spirit.  His  wife,  for  in- 
stance, who  has  been  brought  up  piously 
in  a  Dissenting  book  shop  in  the  county 
town,  accepts  his  failings  with  a  fat, 
simple  kindness.  "  They  speak  harsh  to 
you,"  she  says,  embracing  the  whole  sex 
in  the  description.  "  And  they  like  their 
glass,  and  there's  no  pleasing  'em  with 
their  meals,  but  I  dunno  that  we'd  have 
'em  different  if  we  could." 

The  two  are  married  as  very  young 
people  in  that  unpractical  age  when  it 
seems  better  to  be  poor  together  than  to 
be  rich  apart.  Mary  is  ill  soon  afterwards 
— an  illness  which  she  bears  with  the 
simple  patience  and  sweetness  which  are 
indeed  still  characteristic  of  her  when  she 
has  long  ceased  to   be  slim  and  girlish. 

344 


The  Farmer 

The  fidelity  and  devotion  with  which  her 
husband,  who  is  a  fine,  vigorous  young 
fellow  in  those  days,  nurses  her  is  still  on 
record.  It  is  remembered  how,  when  their 
little  daughter  is  born  to  them — dead — he 
puts  down  his  honest  impetuous  head  on 
the  pillow  by  Mary  and  cries  like  a  child. 
Though  a  son  comes  to  them  a  few  years 
later,  the  little  girl  who  never  saw  the 
light  is  still  beloved  and  unforgotten ;  and 
when  the  chapter  wherein  David  loses  his 
child  is  read  in  church,  the  Farmer's  eyes 
are  so  dim  that  he  cannot  see. 

He  is  believed  to  be  all  his  life  under 
the  illusion  that  Mary  still  wears  her  girl- 
ish charms.  Though  he  speaks  to  her 
often  roughly  himself,  he  is  ready  to  de- 
fend her  a  great  deal  more  roughly,  if 
need  be,  against  all  the  world.  When 
the  well-bred  son  suggests,  without  in- 
deed intending  to  offend  the  "  peppery 
old  chap  "  the  least  in  the  world,  that  it 
would  be  more  convenient  if  my  mother 
were  slim  and  active  enough  to  look  after 
the  pigs  and  chickens  herself,  the  "  pep- 
pery old  chap  "  turns  on  his  son  with  his 

345 


The  Farmer 

honest  old  face  quite  savage  and  apo- 
plectic. "  Darn  you,"  he  says,  "  and  darn 
the  pigs  and  chickens  too,  afore  I'd  have 
a  whipping-post  of  a  wife  like  yours." 
And  the  gentlemanly  Jack  turns  his  back 
upon  his  father's  ill-bred  wrath  and  re- 
tires, humming  an  air  with  a  great  deal  of 
nonchalance  and  a  smile. 

With  his  farm  people  old  John  is  par- 
ticularly hasty  and  kind.  They  under- 
stand his  ways  perfectly  perhaps.  "  He 
do  cuss,  bless  'im,"  when  the  cottages 
want  repairing,  but  he  repairs  them  not 
the  less.  He  loses  his  hot  old  temper  to 
a  degree  quite  alarming  when  they  neglect 
their  duty.  But  he  never  turns  them  off 
with  a  sarcastic  urbanity,  as  does  his 
brother  farmer  in  the  next  parish. 

He  is  perhaps  worse  served  and  more 
beloved  than  any  agriculturist  in  the  dis- 
trict. When  times  are  bad  the  people 
come  to  him  readily  for  relief,  and,  though 
he  gives  them  plenty  of  grumbling  and 
strong  language,  these  are  never  the  only 
memories  of  him  they  carry  away. 

John  is  people's  churchwarden.      He  is 

346 


The  Farmer 

not  perhaps  entirely  successful  in  this 
capacity.  A  person  whose  mildest  con- 
versation is  interlarded,  quite  uncon- 
sciously and  from  long  habit,  with  un- 
commonly expressive  flowers  of  speech, 
must  be  allowed  to  have  his  drawbacks  as 
an  officer  of  religion.  Upon  matters  of 
Church  doctrine,  moreover,  the  farmer  is 
as  ignorant,  as  obstinate,  as  conservative, 
and  as  pig-headed  as  any  man  in  the 
kingdom.  A  place  of  worship  mouldy, 
moth-eaten,  and  principally  ornamented 
with  a  huge  three-decker  pulpit,  was  good 
enough  for  his  fathers,  and  he  would  like 
to  know,  with  an  ominous  red  coming 
into  his  honest  old  face,  why  it  shouldn't 
be  good  enough  for  him  ?  When  the 
parson,  who  indeed  is  not  injudicious, 
and  has  a  very  kindly  liking  and  respect 
for  this  hot-headed  parishioner,  first 
preaches  in  a  surplice,  John  disseminates 
awful  reports  in  the  parish  in  which  the 
Scarlet  Lady  and  the  Pope  of  Rome  fig- 
ure largely.  He  absents  himself  from 
church  for  a  Sunday  or  two.  But  he 
finds  that  he  gets  on  very  badly  without 

347 


The  Farmer 

what  he  calls  his  "  religion,"  and  comes 
back  pretty  soon  to  the  seat  which  he 
has  occupied  every  Sunday  since  he  was  a 
child.  He  continues,  it  is  true,  to  sniff 
at  [^ the  parson's  Romish  abominations, 
but  he  says  his  prayers  in  a  fine,  fervent 
old  voice,  and  with  his  rough  face  very 
pious  and  absorbed. 

The  great  love  of  the  old  man's  life  is 
the  gentlemanly  Jack.  At  a  time  when 
money  was  a  great  deal  scarcer  with  him 
than  it  is  now  he  gave  Jack  an  excellent 
education.  The  result  of  that  education 
is  not  perhaps  unprecedented.  The  slow, 
old-fashioned  ways  of  his  father  are  not 
quite  good  enough  for  \.h.e  fin-de-siecle  son. 
Jack  is  indeed  fond  of  the  "  old  chap" 
in  a  slightly  condescending  manner,  and 
the  father  is  devoted  with  all  the  passion 
of  his  hot,  faithful  heart  to  the  boy  to 
whom  he  can  scarcely  talk  for  an  hour 
without  quarrelling.  There  are  a  thou- 
sand subjects  of  dispute  between  the 
two.  There  is  Jack's  wife,  the  genteel 
whipping-post  brought  up  in  black  silk  in 
a  fashionable  milliner's  in  London.    There 

348 


The  Farmer 

is  a  certain  easy,  bored,  indolent  air  the 
son  has  with  him,  vastly  irritating.  There 
is  his  confounded  fiddle-daddle  taste  for 
literature,  which  has  been  known  to  lead 
him  to  lie  full  length  on  the  parlor-sofa 
on  a  Sunday  morning,  smoking  perpetual 
pipes  and  reading  "  East  Lynne. " 

There  is  his  desire — curse  him — to  in- 
troduce the  steam  plough  and  other  new- 
fangled arrangements  into  the  sleepy, 
tranquil,  behind-the-times  old  farm,  and 
his  appearance  on  high  days  and  holidays 
in  a  suit  of  clothes  fit  for  a  gentleman, 
and  a  pair  of  the  finest,  dandy,  most  ex- 
asperating patent  leather  boots. 

Mary,  the  fat,  tranquil  Mary,  tries  her 
best  to  keep  the  peace  between  the  two. 

"  I'm  sorry  to  annoy  my  father,"  says 
Jack;  "  but  he's  so  deuced  peppery,  you 
know." 

Is  he  ?  Perhaps.  Mary  at  least  ac- 
quiesces, or  seems  to  acquiesce,  in  the 
dictum  with  a  stout  sigh.  Yet  he  has 
been  good  to  her — very  good — very  faith- 
ful, devoted,  and  honest.  He  has  the 
tenderest    heart   and    bravest    spirit,    she 

349 


The  Farmer 

thinks,  of  any  man  in  the  world.  Perhaps, 
like  a  true  woman,  she  loves  him  none  the 
less  because  he  often  gives  her  pain. 

The  cause  of  the  quarrel  which  parts 
the  father  and  son  for  ever  is  not  pre- 
cisely known. 

Perhaps  it  rises  in  Jack's  patent  leather 
boots,  in  the  steam  plough,  or  his  dese- 
cration of  the  Sabbath.  It  is  at  least 
certain  that  the  old  man  is  the  more  in 
the  wrong.  lie  loses  his  hot  old  temper 
from  the  first.  He  turns  and  curses  the 
boy  whom  he  loves  from  the  depth  of  his 
honest  heart,  and  reproaches  him  in  bitter 
words  which  can  never  be  forgotten. 

Jack  is  seT- possessed  enough.  The 
superior  education  he  has  received  ena- 
bles him  to  control  his  feelings  pretty 
easily  while  the  infuriated  old  man,  with 
his  face  aflame,  is  shouting  at  him  across 
the  table. 

Curse  you  !  "  says  the  Farmer  breath- 
lessly. "  And  curse  me  if  I  ever  see 
your  face  again  I  " 

"  As  you  like,  sir,"  replies  the  gentle- 
manly Jack,  cool,  urbane,   and  courteous 

350 


The  Farmer 

to  the  last.  And  he  turns  on  his  heel  and 
leaves  his  father  alone. 

The  two  do  not  meet  for  many  years. 
Until  Jack  goes  away  the  Farmer  has 
never  known,  perhaps,  how  dear  the  boy 
has  been  to  him. 

Yet  when  Mary  mentions  his  name,  and 
lays  her  plump  hand  with  the  worn  wed- 
ding ring  on  it  pleadingly  on  her  hus- 
band's arm,  he  turns  upon  her  furiously, 
and  bids  her  to  be  quiet  with  an  oath. 

He  has  loved  the  boy  too  well  to  for- 
give him  easily. 

One  day  the  news  comes  that  Jack  has 
a  little  son  of  his  own. 

"  You'll  let  bygones  be  bygones  now, 
won't  you,  my  dear  ?  "  says  Mary.  She 
has  a  great  want  to  take  that  baby  in  her 
warm,  motherly  arms,  to  renew  the  feel- 
ings with  which  she  bent  over  her  own 
son,  little,  innocent,  and  good.  And  the 
Farmer  says  "No"  in  a  great  voice. 
And  Mary  dares  ask  no  more. 

The  trouble  preys  on  her  health  at  last. 

She  dies  very  quietly  one  night  in  her 
sleep.      The  old  man's  agony  of  grief  at 

351 


The  Farmer 

her  going  is  terrible  to  see.  Now  she 
has  left  him  he  is  quite  alone. 

He  is  so  far  softened  by  her  death  that 
in  the  early  days  of  his  grief  he  makes  a 
resolution  concerning  the  boy.  He  puts 
off  its  fulfilment  indeed  for  many  weeks. 
And  at  last,  before  he  has  carried  it  into 
action,  is  taken  ill  himself. 

He  has  kindly  people  about  him.  The 
parson  and  the  parson's  gentle  wife  come 
every  day  to  see  him.  A  portly  milkmaid, 
of  indefinite  age,  who  has  been  in  his 
service  since  she  was  sixteen,  and  hopes 
to  die  in  his  service,  a  milkmaid  still, 
nurses  him  faithfully. 

"  He's  got  summut  on  his  mind,"  she 
says  to  the  Doctor.  "  He's  that  restless 
as  he's  been  hay-making  with  the  bed- 
clothes all  night.  Maybe  when  he  can 
speak  he'll  tell  us  what  it  is." 

He  recovers  his  speech  in  a  day  or  two, 
but  he  makes  no  further  use  of  it  than 
to  say,  in  a  wearisome  repetition,  one 
word — the  name  of  his  son.  They  are 
not  sure  if  he  is  wholly  sensible.  He 
takes  the    food   and    the  medicine    they 


The  Farmer 

give  him  with  a  meekness  foreign  to  his 
character.  But  he  says  nothing  except 
Jack,  Jack,  Jack,  over  and  over  again, 
and  in  a  heart-rending  voice. 

Through  a  moaning  and  troublesome 
night  he  asks  for  the  boy  repeatedly. 
Through  the  hot  August  day — in  the 
sultry  afternoon.  He  wakes  at  last  from 
an  uneasy  sleep  to  see  his  son  sitting 
quietly  by  his  side.  "Why,  Jacky  !  " 
says  the  Farmer,  with  a  sudden  cry  of 
joy,  "  I'm  darned  if  I  haven't  been  dream- 
ing that  we  had  a  quarrel,  and  I  sent 
you  away.  That  was  a  rare  mistake  to 
make,  Jacky,  wasn't  it  ?" 

**  A  rare  mistake,"  says  gentleman  Jack 
in  a  deep  voice. 

John  lies  quietly  after  this  for  many 
hours.  His  brave  old  face,  tanned  with 
the  broad  winds  of  heaven,  is  scarcely, 
even  now,  like  the  face  of  a  dying  man. 
He  fancies  that  Mary  is  downstairs  mind- 
ing the  grandson  he  has  never  seen. 
"  She's  so  fond  of  the  childer,  is  the  old 
woman,"  he  says. 

Towards  night,  while  Jack  is  still  sit- 
23  353 


The  Farmer 

ting  by  his  side  in  the  darkening  room,  a 
drowsiness  falls  on  him.  But  there  is,  or 
seems  to  be,  some  uneasiness  in  his  mind 
which  will  not  let  him  sleep. 

It's  the  dream,  Jacky, "  he  says  in  a 
troubled  voice.  "  Some  one — the  old  fool, 
God  bless  her,  who  waits  on  me — said 
that  it  was  true. 

"  There  is  nothing  true,"  answers  gen- 
tleman Jack  huskily,  "  except  that  we've 
been — deuced  fond  of  each  other  all  the 
time." 

And  the  Farmer  passed  from  a  sleep  in 
which  all  the  dreams  are  tranquil  to  that 
sleep  in  which  there  are  none. 


THE   END. 


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